Inequalities and COVID-19 1
J. Michael Ryan in COVID-19, 2020
Curfews and restrictions on movement are devastating the meager incomes and access to food of people displaced by violent conflicts in Uganda and Ethiopia, interrupting the delivery of seeds and farming tools in South Sudan, and halting the distribution of food aid in the Central African Republic. In Niger, which hosts almost 60,000 refugees fleeing conflict in Mali, food prices have surged. Locust swarms in the Horn of Africa and droughts and floods have also deepened food insecurity, and travel bans and airport closures have limited pesticide supplies. In some cases, charitable food donations attract huge crowds, who are then exposed to the virus.
The Future of Parasitology
Eric S. Loker, Bruce V. Hofkin in Parasitology, 2023
Water and food security will become harder to insure because the carrying capacity of the world will be pushed to the limit, with but small tolerances for unexpected outcomes such as droughts or floods. In 2020, a locust outbreak, the largest seen in 70 years, threatened East Africa and India. Furthermore, the health of both food plants and animals will be compromised by parasites, many of which have become resistant to our chemical defenses. It seems almost inevitable that inadequate nutrition if not outright starvation will continue to be a frequent outcome for those living in impoverished areas with marginal rainfall.
Allergy to Arthropods
Gail Miriam Moraru, Jerome Goddard in The Goddard Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance, Seventh Edition, 2019
The desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria (actually a species of grasshopper), emerges in huge swarms and may fly long distances to eat lush vegetation, including crops. This species has caused significant crop losses in Africa and Asia for thousands of years. One such “plague” of locusts in central Sudan in 2003 caused an epidemic of allergic attacks which Sudanese officials called “lung eczema.”42 One official in the affected area said the illness was linked to a pheromone released by the locusts during their mating season, which caused asthma in affected people.
Overlapping of locust swarms with COVID-19 pandemic: a cascading disaster for Africa
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2020
Mizanur Rahaman, Otun Saha, Nadira Naznin Rakhi, Miraj Kobad Chowdhury, Peter Sammonds, ASM Maksud Kamal
Simultaneous to the COVID-19 pandemic, locust swarms primarily of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) are threatening agriculture production and pasture in 23 countries to date. Currently affected are nine countries in the East African region, eleven from North Africa and the Middle East, and three countries from South Asia. Locust outbreaks of large numbers have a history of having extreme effects over food production and mortality. The locust invasion of November 1915–1916 caused starvation or starvation-related diseases in Syria and Palestine, and killed 100,000–200,000 people in the region [2]. The current locust swarm, which began in July 2019, has become endemic in Africa, and alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a disaster with a cascading risk [3]. It is presumed that with the world’s attention on COVID-19, the locust-endemic is perceived as a relatively overlooked hazard risk. This has been borne out due to the failed control of the locust infestation in countries which first saw locusts, including Somalia, Kenya, and South Africa. As a result, the swarm has crossed from the Horn of Africa to Pakistan, where the government has declared a national emergency to combat the attack and save crops, just as the Somalian government did. The cascade of both catastrophes may result in a disaster escalating toward famine, health-hazards and poverty in the regions at risk. A recent locust plague in West Africa (2003–2005) severely disrupted agriculture, destroying 2.5 USD billion in crops destined for both subsistence and export [4].
Significance of DopEcR, a G-protein coupled dopamine/ecdysteroid receptor, in physiological and behavioral response to stressors
Published in Journal of Neurogenetics, 2020
Emily Petruccelli, Arianna Lark, James A. Mrkvicka, Toshihiro Kitamoto
Phase polyphenism is a phenomenon where animals of a single species undergo great phenotypic changes in response to environmental cues (Applebaum & Heifetz, 1999). In the case of the migratory locust Locusta migratoria, increased population density drives a transformation from the solitarious to gregarious phase within a generation with marked metabolic and neurobiological changes, resulting in their dark coloration, swarming, and dramatic mass migrations which can lead to terrible agricultural losses (Gray, Sword, Anstey, Clissold, & Simpson, 2009). This transformation involves changes in both transcription of catecholamine-related genes (Ma, Guo, Guo, Wang, & Kang, 2011) and ecdysteroids titer (Tawfik & Sehnal, 2003). DopEcR was upregulated in gregarious-phase locusts compared to solitarious-phase locusts (Chen et al., 2010). While the exact role of DopEcR in the phase transformation is unclear, its upregulation in the gregarious phase together with changes in ecdysteroid levels indicates that ecdysone signaling through DopEcR may play a role in helping locusts properly manage their phenotypic responses to a high-density environment, which is considered socially stressful for locusts (Roessingh, Bouaı¨Chi, & Simpson, 1998; Simpson, Despland, Hagele, & Dodgson, 2001).
Characterization and inhibition studies of hemolymph phenoloxidase from Dociostaurus maroccanus
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2018
Bahareh Rafiei, Mohammad Ghadamyari, Sohrab Imani, Vahid Hosseininaveh, Ali Ahadiyat
The Moroccan locust, Dociostaurus maroccanus (Thunberg) is the most destructive pest and causes serious damages to many crops. This pest can be found across South Europe, North Africa and the Middle East and Iran. In addition rangeland destruction, the outbreak of locusts may result in serious ecological processes disruption across landscapes (e.g. carbon and water cycles). Soil erosion and runoff increase are the results of locusts′ unfavorable contribution to the removal of vegetation cover. Moreover, locusts can also affect biodiversity adversely, since they destroy animals’ food sources (Lachininskii, 1989; Lachininskii et al., 2011).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Famine
- Insecticide
- Morphology
- Phenotypic Plasticity
- Polyphenism
- Sexual Dimorphism
- Metabolism
- Serotonin
- Species
- Sense of Smell