Read the passages given below and answer the questions that follow each passage.In late 2013, in the village of Meliandou in rural Guinea, a group of children playing near a hollow tree disturbed a small colony of bats hiding inside. Scientists think that Emile Ouamouno, who later became the first tragic “index” case in the west African Ebola outbreak, was likely exposed to bat faeces while playing near the tree.Every pandemic starts like this. An innocuous human activity, such as eating wildlife, can spark an outbreak that leads to a pandemic. In 2019, we can speculate that a person from south-west China entered a bat cave near their village to hunt wildlife for sale at the local wet market. Perhaps they later developed a nagging cough that represents the beginning of what we now know as Covid-19. Now, a growing human population, ever-encroaching development and a globalized network of travel and trade have accelerated the pace of pandemic emergence. We’re entering a new pandemic era.Most pandemics begin in the emerging disease hotspots of the world; the edges of forests in regions such as west Africa, the Amazon basin and south-east Asia. Tropical rainforests are home to a rich diversity of wildlife, which in turn carry an array of viruses. We know far more about these animals than we do about the viruses they carry. An estimated 1.7m viruses exist in mammals and birds, but less than 0.1% have been described. They spread to millions of people each year; though they often don’t cause noticeable symptoms, the sheer volume means that plenty can. Before humans became an agricultural species, our populations were sparser and less connected. A virus infecting a hunter-gatherer might only reach family members or perhaps a hunting group. But the Anthropocene, our new geological epoch, has changed everything. A great acceleration of human activity has dramatically altered our planet’s landscapes, oceans and atmosphere, transforming as much as half of the world’s tropical forest into agriculture and human settlements.About one-third of emerging diseases are the product of these rapid changes in land use, as people are pushed into contact with wildlife they would once have rarely encountered. The viruses that emerge, such as Zika, Ebola and Nipah, include the latest of our foes, Covid-19, transported from the altered rural landscape of China to a city near you.Human activity has created a continuous cycle of viral spillover and spread. Our current approach is to wait for outbreaks to start, and then design drugs or vaccines to control them. But as we’ve seen with Covid-19, this approach isn’t good enough: while we wait for a vaccine, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and millions have been infected. By the time the US produced sufficient doses to vaccinate against the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, the virus had already infected about a quarter of the people on our planet.If we are to prevent future pandemics, we will need to reassess our relationship with nature, blocking each step in the chain of disease emergence. This should begin with reducing the rampant consumption that drives deforestation and wildlife exploitation. We’ll also need to remove viral-risk species from wildlife markets, crack down on the illegal wildlife trade and work with communities to find alternatives.

Question No. 18 What is the main point which the author intends to convey through the passage? Consuming wildlife is the primary reason for the spread of diseases.  A globalized network of travel and trade is detrimental to the well-being of humans.  Abuse of nature and wildlife by humans, which is largely responsible for the spread of viruses, should be stopped.  Our approach to check the spread of viral outbreaks is flawed.

4. Case Studies and Examples: 4.1 The Australian Biosecurity System: 4.2 The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa:

O enfermeiro britânico William Pooley, que contraiu o vírus ebola em Serra Leoa durante um período como enfermeiro voluntário e se recuperou, acaba de regressar ao país – um dos epicentros da epidemia no oeste da África – para retomar seu trabalho. Pooley se recuperou do ebola após ser tratado nos estágios iniciais da infecção, antes de sofrer qualquer sangramento interno ou externo, com uma droga experimental chamada ZMapp, que consiste em um “coquetel” de três anticorpos, cujos estudos para seu desenvolvimento se iniciaram a mais de uma década. Ele doou amostras de seu sangue para que cientistas busquem pistas e realizem pesquisas visando ao desenvolvimento de fármacos antivirais para cura dessa doença, que já deixou mais de 4,5 mil mortos.Fonte: http://g1.globo.com/bemestar/ebola/noticia/2014/10/ britanico-curado-do-ebola-voltaafrica-e-coloca-imunidade-prova.html. Acesso em 20 out. 2014 (adaptado). Acerca dos antivirais, analise as asserções: I. É desafiante o desenvolvimento de antivirais que inibam a replicação viral sem causar simultaneamente alguma toxicidade para o organismo hospedeiro.PORQUEII. Os vírus são parasitas intracelulares obrigatórios que utilizam a maquinaria bioquímica da célula hospedeira necessária para sua replicação. É correto afirmar que:A)As duas afirmações são verdadeiras e a segunda não justifica a primeira.B)As duas afirmações são verdadeiras e a segunda justifica a primeira.C)As duas afirmações são falsas.D)A primeira afirmação é verdadeira e a segunda é falsa.E)A primeira afirmação é falsa e a segunda é verdadeira.

Researchers at Auburn University have put forth a new paper that suggests a global correlation between habitat loss and the emergence of infectious diseases. The team’s hypothesis is called the coevolution effect, and it attempts to explain why diseases are more likely to transfer from wildlife to humans in deforested habitats. The theory hinges on the idea that as human activity changes the landscape, the leftover “forest fragments" essentially become their own islands and disease-carrying microbes hosted there experience diversification, which paves the way for outbreaks of disease in humans.Which finding, if true, would most directly support the researchers’ hypothesis?Another team of researchers conducted a study that correlated the increase of microbes in a given area to the rise of various kinds of vegetation.eliminateA new human disease’s outbreak was traced back to an area surrounded by deforested land and many forest fragments.eliminateAn overall decrease in deforestation led to an overall increase in disease outbreaks in humans. eliminateWildlife activists have identified multiple possible reasons for the emergence of infectious diseases that do not relate to habitat loss.

DISCUSS REASONS WHY SOME OUTBREAKS OF VIRAL HAEMORRHAGIC FEVERS LIKE THE EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE, HAVE BECOME BIG AND UNCOTROLLED. (10 MARKS)