A biohazard is an organism, or biological substance, that threatens the life of other organisms or humans. They include harmful biological agents such as viruses, toxins, bacteria, insects, birds, animals, plants and humans themselves, which can cause diseases and death — the ultimate harm — directly or indirectly.
Man is the greatest sufferer whenever there is a biohazard attack. And with climate change, particularly global warming, biohazards have increased their onslaught. Strange diseases have arisen in the recent years that take long to contain and have no calculable cure.
One can think of HIV/Aids, avian influenza, the current coronavirus outbreak and numerous zoonotic diseases. Zoonoses include rabies (from dogs), hantavirus (rodents), Zika virus, dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile (mosquitoes), Nipha virus (pigs and bats), parrot fever/psittacosis (birds) and Ebola (wild animals), among others.
Sweltering earth temperatures can exacerbate the emergence and spread of diseases and disease-causing vectors. Though it may cause massive specie extinctions, it may first cause specie explosion and displacement, forcing species to wander into new areas where they may eat or be eaten.
In Kenya, the prolonged rains and warm temperatures appear to have caused an exponential growth in insect populations. Today it is the locust, tomorrow it may be the army worm, stemming from the bursting butterfly and moth population — their sympatric speciation and cannibalism notwithstanding.
Army worms will skeletonise crops as they whorl and burrow into them. Like the locusts, butterflies may have had a fast breeding period, inspired by warm temperatures. Beetles, ants, aphids, gnats, bees, ticks and mites could join the league of insects expeditiously going ‘from warm to swarm’.
The insects will wreak havoc with plants and the environment besides tyrannising people for months as they enkindle ‘swarmageddons’ (human-insect battlefields). As the older generations die, new ones will be in the offing.
The yellowing locusts in Kenya are ageing but their nymphs (hoppers) are lithely filling out. Some eggs could be in the soil, laid by the second batch that came a season earlier than usual. The youthful locusts (pink) you see are the next egg layers. The locust problem is long way from over; locusts live for three to five months.
Swarming beetles can be harmless but their babies are not. Beetle grubs kill grasses by feeding on their roots. A throng of ants may not only bite but also debauch building foundations by tunnelling into them. A swarm of female aphids can reproduce parthenogenetically (without fertilisation of their eggs) and produce live young ones with growing baby aphids in them (telescoping of generations).
Clouds of puny gnats can be unerringly pesky, swirling around humans and fabricating fiefdoms everywhere. The case of ticks is more perturbing: They do not only cause diseases (Lyme disease, spirochete, brain damage and so on) but also death to humans and animals.
Honeybees are undergoing some annihilation of sorts, due to what scientists call ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ — where bees instantaneously abandon their hives due to humans interference. Despite this, swarms of bees can sting their way to the next colony. Mites will foster a zest of malady as they infest dwellings.
We must read the times and rearrange our actions against biohazards, including terror attacks. This entails installing serious disaster preparedness and early warning systems, carrying out civic education to create awareness, economically empowering the people to reduce vulnerability, taking out insurance, tooling the people to seal off survival gaps, attempting natural means of dealing with the biohazards, disrupting the flow patterns or conduits of the biohazards and praying for divine intervention.
Dr Kipkiror, an environmental consultant, is a lecturer at School of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Kabianga. [email protected]
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