Medicinal Plants in the Asia Pacific for Zoonotic Pandemics, Volume 2

Those interested in pharmacy, traditional medicines, ethnopharmacology, pharmacology, medicinal plants, natural products, botany, and biodiversity in the Asia-Pacifc region are impatiently awaiting the release of new titles by Professor Christophe Wiart. It is always a great pleasure to discover his works, whose unique phylogenetic presentation provides a real added value not only for chemotaxonomists but also for college students, post-doctoral fellows, academic and industrial scientists. This new series – "Medicinal Plants in the Asia Pacifc for Zoonotic Pandemics" – is particularly relevant in terms of subject, timing, and area. Indeed, with the eradication of smallpox in 1977 and the development of numerous vaccines, we were all convinced that infectious diseases would soon be under control and of less concern than cancers and cardiovascular diseases. However, the emergence of recent viral pandemics (AIDS, Ebola, SARS, Chikungunya, Zika, H5N1, H1N1) and now COVID-19 forces us to revise our optimism, as zoonoses represent an increasingly frequent and worrisome public health problem. Subject as we are to over a thousand parasites and pathogens, humans today constitute the most parasitized species. The Neolithic revolution, which resulted in the sedentarization of hunter-gatherers, animal domestication and plant cultivation, lead to the frst environmental changes and to consequences on human health. The extension of the agrarian way of life, the domestication of animals, and the increase in livestock were the source of new infections. For example, the emergence of measles, a serious pathology for humans, is due to the domestication of cattle which favored the transmission of the rinderpest virus to humans in the frst Mesopotamian cities. In humans, this bovine virus has evolved into measles. According to Prof Kate E. Jones (2008) from University College London, 60% of emerging diseases between 1940 and 2004 are zoonoses, mostly of wild origin (72%). High up on the list come Ebola fevers, Marburg, Lassa and Coronavirus diseases (MERS, SARS, SARS-CoV-2 …). As early as 2015, the World Health Organization was already sounding the alarm about the risk of the appearance of new coronavirus pandemics. For the past few decades, our behavior toward the environment has become increasingly inconsequential, particularly from a public health point of view. As mentioned by Professor Wiart in the preface to volume one, the increasing contact between humans and wild animals, due to deforestation, poaching, wet-markets for "bushmeat" consumption of living bats, primates and birds, is promoting the emergence of viral zoonotic pandemics in over-populated cities. Intensive industrial animal husbandry that cages, crams and confnes pigs, poultry and cattle to the extreme is also the ideal breeding ground for the emergence of virulent strains. In practical terms, a mildly dangerous viral strain that affects overcrowded industrial animal production spreads very quickly. As it moves through the farm, replicating wildly, the virus mutates and gives rise to new, more dangerous strains. The increasingly low genetic diversity of industrial farms also favors epidemics by facilitating transmission from one animal to another. Moreover, the unprecedented rise in the number of travelers, the speed and intensifcation of air travel and globalization in general, make the rapid spread of pandemics inevitable. Thus, the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) epidemic that started in November 2019 in Wuhan, imposed the confnement of more than three billion people, disrupted the economies of countries worldwide, counting almost four million victims to date, brings us face to face with reality. Such an acute health crisis should be interpreted as an alarm bell, inciting us to accelerate awareness and treatment of root causes. This microscopic bat virus should induce our omnipotent and omnipresent species on the planet to more modesty and propel us to act for truly sustainable development. Homo sapiens by its number, density and behaviors is now an invasive species, dangerous to its vegetal and animal co-species, its environment and, fnally, to itself. The primordial option should be a holistic approach to sustainable development (One Health) that integrates the interrelated global issues of environmental, human, and animal health, while respecting climate and ecological objectives. Only xii Foreword by reasoning and acting on a global scale, can we reduce the risk of zoonotic and parasitic disease emergence. It is by preserving biodiversity, studying traditional resources, that we should aim to continue using medicinal plants and develop this invaluable knowledge, particularly as more than 60% of the world’s population relies on traditional medicine for its health care. I am convinced that these four volumes will be an essential reference and a useful tool toward achieving this goal. It gives me great pleasure to write this foreword to volume two and I wish Professor Wiart’s new work every success it deserves.

Dr. Bruno David, DPharm, PhD, HDR Ex-Director of Phytochemistry and Biodiversity Pierre Fabre Research Institute Toulouse (France), June 6, 2021