Villar: Protecting wildlife habitats will prevent the spread of infectious diseases
Senator Cynthia Villar has called on the public to help protect wildlife habitats and biodiversity to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Villar, chair of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, made the reaction after she cited a study which showed that the continuous destruction of wildlife habitats and biodiversity loss contribute to the spread of infectious diseases. “We designate some areas in our country as protected areas because it is important for these places to remain untouched and unexploited. There’s already a wealth of studies out there asserting that infectious diseases such as Ebola, HIV, swine fever and avian flu originated from animals,” said Villar, during the celebration of World Environment Day recently. A study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society showed that habitat loss forces animals to move to areas populated by people, who become exposed to the pathogens of animals that in turn spread viruses. Scientist cited as example the Ni...