Summary The COVID-19 pandemic has brought humanity’s strained relationship with nature into sharp focus, with calls for cessation of wild meat trade and consumption, to protect public health and biodiversity. 1 , 2 However, the importance of wild meat for human nutrition, and its tele-couplings to other food production systems, mean that the complete removal of wild meat from diets and markets would represent a shock to global food systems. 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 The negative consequences of this shock deserve consideration in policy responses to COVID-19. We demonstrate that the sudden policy-induced loss of wild meat from food systems could have negative consequences for people and nature. Loss of wild meat from diets could lead to food insecurity, due to reduced protein and nutrition, and/or drive land-use change to replace lost nutrients with animal agriculture, which could increase biodiversity loss and emerging infectious disease risk. We estimate the magnitude of these consequences for 83 countries, and qualitatively explore how prohibitions might play out in 10 case study places. Results indicate that risks are greatest for food-insecure developing nations, where feasible, sustainable, and socially desirable wild meat alternatives are limited. Some developed nations would also face shocks, and while high-capacity food systems could more easily adapt, certain places and people would be disproportionately impacted. We urge decision-makers to consider potential unintended consequences of policy-induced shocks amidst COVID-19; and take holistic approach to wildlife trade interventions, which acknowledge the interconnectivity of global food systems and nature, and include safeguards for vulnerable people.

This article explores the implications for human health of local interactions between disease, ecosystems and livelihoods. Five interdisciplinary case studies addressed zoonotic diseases in African settings: Rift Valley fever (RVF) in Kenya, human African trypanosomiasis in Zambia and Zimbabwe, Lassa fever in Sierra Leone and henipaviruses in Ghana. Each explored how ecological changes and human–ecosystem interactions affect pathogen dynamics and hence the likelihood of zoonotic spillover and transmission, and how socially differentiated peoples’ interactions with ecosystems and animals affect their exposure to disease. Cross-case analysis highlights how these dynamics vary by ecosystem type, across a range from humid forest to semi-arid savannah; the significance of interacting temporal and spatial scales; and the importance of mosaic and patch dynamics. Ecosystem interactions and services central to different people's livelihoods and well-being include pastoralism and agro-pastoralism, commercial and subsistence crop farming, hunting, collecting food, fuelwood and medicines, and cultural practices. There are synergies, but also tensions and trade-offs, between ecosystem changes that benefit livelihoods and affect disease. Understanding these can inform ‘One Health’ approaches towards managing ecosystems in ways that reduce disease risks and burdens.This article is part of the themed issue ‘One Health for a changing world: zoonoses, ecosystems and human well-being’.

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Bats are key species for ecological function, but they are also reservoirs of zoonotic agents, such as lyssaviruses that cause rabies. Little is known about the maintenance and transmission of lyssaviruses in bats, although the observation of clinically sick bats, both in experimental studies and wild bats, has at least demonstrated that lyssaviruses are capable of causing clinical disease in bat species. Despite this, extensive surveillance for diseased bats has not yielded lyssaviruses, whilst serological surveys demonstrate that bats must be exposed to lyssavirus without developing clinical disease. We hypothesize that there is endemic circulation of Lagos bat virus (LBV) in the straw-coloured fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) in Ghana, West Africa. To investigate this further, longitudinal blood sampling was undertaken quarterly between 2012 and 2014 on wild E. helvum at two sites in Ghana. Serum samples were collected and tested for LBV-neutralizing antibodies using a modified flourescent antibody virus neutralisation (FAVN) assay (n = 294) and brains from moribund or dead bats were tested for antigen and viral RNA (n = 55). Overall, 44.7% of the 304 bats sampled had LBV-neutralising antibodies. None of the brain samples from bats contained lyssavirus antigen or RNA. Together with the results of an earlier serological study, our findings demonstrate that LBV is endemic and circulates within E. helvum in Ghana even though the detection of viral infection in dead bats was unsuccessful. Confirmation that LBV infection is endemic in E. helvum in Ghana is an important finding and indicates that the potential public health threats from LBV warrant further investigation.