When most people think about the beginnings of AIDS, they're gonna think back to the 1980s. And certainly, this was the decade in which we discovered AIDS and the virus that causes it, HIV. But in fact this virus crossed over into humans many decades before, from chimpanzees, where the virus originated, into humans who hunt these apes.
Kad većina ljudi razmišlja o početku AIDS-a, sjetit će se 1980-ih godina. Naravno, to je bilo desetljeće u kojem smo otkrili AIDS i virus koji ga izaziva, HIV. Ali zapravo, ovaj virus prešao je na ljude mnogo desetljeća prije, s čimpanzi, odakle on i potječe, na ljude koji su lovili te čovjekolike majmune.
This photo was taken before the Great Depression in Brazzaville, Congo. At this time, there were thousands of individuals, we think, that were infected with HIV.
Ova je fotografija slikana prije Velike depresije u Brazzavilleu u Kongu. Već su tada tisuće osoba, barem tako mislimo, bile zaražene HIV-om.
So I have a couple of really important questions for you. If this virus was in thousands of individuals at this point, why was it the case that it took us until 1984 to be able to discover this virus? OK now, more importantly, had we been there in the '40s and '50s, '60s, had we seen this disease, had we understood exactly what was going on with it, how might that have changed and completely transformed the nature of the way this pandemic moved?
Imam nekoliko vrlo važnih pitanja za vas. Ako je taj virus bio prisutan u tisućama osoba tada, zašto smo ga tek 1984. otkrili? Dobro, što je još važnije jest da smo bili ondje u 40-ima, 50-ima i 60-ima, da smo vidjeli tu bolest, da smo razumjeli točno što se događa s njom, koliko bi to moglo promijeniti i potpuno preoblikovati prirodu širenja te pandemije?
In fact, this is not unique to HIV. The vast majority of viruses come from animals. And you can kind of think of this as a pyramid of this bubbling up of viruses from animals into human populations. But only at the very top of this pyramid do these things become completely human. Nevertheless, we spend the vast majority of our energy focused on this level of the pyramid, trying to tackle things that are already completely adapted to human beings, that are going to be very very difficult to address -- as we've seen in the case of HIV.
Zapravo, to nije svojstveno samo HIV-u. Velika većina virusa dolazi od životinja. Možete to zamisliti kao piramidu uzlaznog prelaska virusa sa životinja na ljude. Ali samo na samom vrhu virusi postaju isključivo ljudski. Unatoč tomu, potrošili smo veliku većinu svoje energije usredotočivši se samo na tu razinu piramide, pokušavajući obuhvatiti viruse koji su se već potpuno prilagodili ljudima, s kojima će se biti vrlo, vrlo teško nositi - kao što smo vidjeli na primjeru HIV-a.
So during the last 15 years, I've been working to actually study the earlier interface here -- what I've labeled "viral chatter," which was a term coined by my mentor Don Burke. This is the idea that we can study the sort of pinging of these viruses into human populations, the movement of these agents over into humans; and by capturing this moment, we might be able to move to a situation where we can catch them early.
Zadnjih 15 godina, proučavam ranije faze onoga - što sam ovdje označio kao „virusno čavrljanje“. Taj je izraz osmislio moj mentor Don Burke. To je ideja da možemo proučavati prijenos ovih virusa na ljudsku populaciju, kretanje ovih tvari na ljude i, obuhvaćajući to kretanje, mogli bismo se pomaknuti na fazu u kojoj ih možemo rano uhvatiti.
OK, so this is a picture, and I'm going to show you some pictures now from the field. This is a picture of a central African hunter. It's actually a fairly common picture. One of the things I want you to note from it is blood -- that you see a tremendous amount of blood contact. This was absolutely key for us. This is a very intimate form of connection. So if we're going to study viral chatter, we need to get to these populations who have intensive contact with wild animals.
Dobro, ovo je slika, a pokazat ću vam sad neke slike s terena. Ovo je slika jednog srednjoafričkog lovca. To je zapravo uobičajeni prizor. Ono što želim da uočite na njoj je krv -- vidite ogromnu količinu krvnog kontakta. Ovo je apsolutno ključno za nas. Ovo je vrlo prisan oblik povezanosti. Ako bismo proučavali „virusno čavrljanje“, trebamo doći do ovih populacija koje imaju intenzivan kontakt s divljim životinjama.
And so we've been studying people like this individual. We collect blood from them, other specimens. We look at the diseases, which are in the animals as well as the humans. And ideally, this is going to allow us to catch these things early on, as they're moving over into human populations. And the basic objective of this work is not to just go out once and look at these individuals, but to establish thousands of individuals in these populations that we would monitor continuously on a regular basis. When they were sick, we would collect specimens from them.
Proučavali smo ljude poput ovog čovjeka. Uzimali smo uzorke njihove krvi i druge uzorke. Promatrali smo bolesti koje su prisutne i kod životinja i kod ljudi. U idealnom slučaju, ovo će nam omogućiti da ih uhvatimo rano, za vrijeme prelaska na ljudsku populaciju. Glavni cilj našeg rada nije samo otići jednom na teren i pogledati ove pojedince, nego pronaći tisuće pojedinaca iz tih populacija koje ćemo moći kontinuirano i redovito pratiti. Kad su bili bolesni, uzeli bismo njihove uzorke.
We would actually enlist them -- which we've done now -- to collect specimens from animals. We give them these little pieces of filter paper. When they sample from animals, they collect the blood on the filter paper and this allows us to identify yet-unknown viruses from exactly the right animals -- the ones that are actually being hunted.
Angažirali bismo ih -- to smo i napravili -- da skupljaju životinjske uzorke. Damo im komadiće filtar papira. Kad uzimaju životinjske uzorke, skupljaju krv na filtar papir. To nam omogućuje da identificiramo dosad nepoznate viruse iz pravih životinja – upravo onih koje se love.
(Video) Narrator: Deep in a remote region of Cameroon, two hunters stalk their prey. Their names are Patrice and Patee. They're searching for bush meat; forest animals they can kill to feed their families. Patrice and Patee set out most days to go out hunting in the forest around their homes. They have a series of traps, of snares that they've set up to catch wild pigs, snakes, monkeys, rodents -- anything they can, really. Patrice and Patee have been out for hours but found nothing. The animals are simply gone.
(Video): Narator: Duboko u udaljenom dijelu Kameruna, dva lovca vrebaju svoj plijen. Zovu se Patrice i Patee. Traže divljač – šumske životinje koje će ubiti da bi nahranili svoje obitelji. Patrice i Patee skoro svaki dan idu u lov u šumu koja okružuje njihove domove. Imaju niz zamki, klopke koje su postavili ne bi li ulovili divlje svinje, zmije, majmune, glodavce, zapravo, sve što mogu uloviti. Već su satima u lovu i nisu još ništa pronašli. Životinja jednostavno nema.
We stop for a drink of water. Then there is a rustle in the brush. A group of hunters approach, their packs loaded with wild game. There's at least three viruses that you know about, which are in this particular monkey.
Stanemo popiti vode. Začuje se šuštanje u grmlju. Skupina lovaca prilazi. Torbe su im pune divljači. Postoje barem tri virusa za koje znamo, a prisutna su u ovom majmunu.
Nathan Wolfe: This species, yeah. And there's many many more pathogens that are present in these animals. These individuals are at specific risk, particularly if there's blood contact, they're at risk for transmission and possibly infection with novel viruses.
Nathan Wolfe: Ova vrsta, da. I postoje mnogi, mnogi drugi patogeni koji su prisutni u ovim životinjama. Ovi pojedinci posebno su izloženi riziku, osobito ako postoji kontakt s krvi izloženi su riziku prijenosa, a moguće su i infekcije novim virusima.
Narrator: As the hunters display their kills, something surprising happens. They show us filter paper they've used to collect the animals' blood. The blood will be tested for zoonotic viruses, part of a program Dr. Wolfe has spent years setting up.
Narator: Dok lovci pokazuju svoj ulov, nešto se zanimljivo dogodi. Pokazuju nam filtar papire koje su koristili za skupljanje životinjske krvi. Krv će se testirati na zoonotične viruse, što je dio programa koji dr. Wolfe godinama provodi.
NW: So this is from this animal right here, Greater Spot-Nosed Guenon. Every person who has one of those filter papers has at least, at a minimum, been through our basic health education about the risks associated with these activities, which presumably, from our perspective, gives them the ability to decrease their own risk, and then obviously the risk to their families, the village, the country, and the world.
NW: To je od ove životinje, velikog točkastonosnog gvenona. Svaka osoba koja ima jedan od ovih filtar papira barem je prošla naš osnovni zdravstveni tečaj o rizicima vezanim uz ove radnje, što im, pretpostavljamo s našeg kuta gledišta, daje sposobnost smanjenja vlastitog rizika, a zatim očito i rizika za svoje obitelji, selo, državu i svijet.
NW: OK, before I continue, I think it's important to take just a moment to talk about bush meat. Bush meat is the hunting of wild game. OK? And you can consider all sorts of different bush meat. I'm going to be talking about this. When your children and grandchildren sort of pose questions to you about this period of time, one of the things they're gonna ask you, is how it was they we allowed some of our closest living relatives, some of the most valuable and endangered species on our planet, to go extinct because we weren't able to address some of the issues of poverty in these parts of the world.
NW: Dobro, prije nego što nastavim, mislim da je važno na trenutak progovoriti o lovu na divljač. To je lov na divlje životinje. OK? Možete razmatrati sve vrste različite divljači. Govorit ću o ovome. Kad vam vaša djeca i unuci postave pitanja o tom razdoblju, jedna od stvari koju će vas pitati jest, kako smo dopustili da neki od naših najbližih živućih srodnika, neki od najvrjednijih i najugroženijih vrsta na planetu izumru zato što se nismo mogli nositi sa siromaštvom u tim dijelovima svijeta.
But in fact that's not the only question they're going to ask you about this. They're also going to ask you the question that when we knew that this was the way that HIV entered into the human population, and that other diseases had the potential to enter like this, why did we let these behaviors continue? Why did we not find some other solution to this? They're going to say, in regions of profound instability throughout the world, where you have intense poverty, where populations are growing and you don't have sustainable resources like this, this is going to lead to food insecurity.
Zapravo to nije jedino pitanje koje će vam postaviti o tome. Pitat će vas i zašto, ako smo znali da je to način na koji je HIV ušao u ljudsku populaciju, i da druge bolesti također imaju potencijal ući na isti način, zašto smo dopustili nastavak ovakvog ponašanja? Zašto nismo pronašli neko drugo rješenje za to? Reći će, u regijama duboke nestabilnosti širom svijeta, gdje imate strašno siromaštvo, gdje populacije rastu i nemate održivih izvora kao ovdje, to će dovesti do štetnosti hrane.
But they're also going to ask you probably a different question. It's one that I think we all need to ask ourselves, which is, why we thought the responsibility rested with this individual here. Now this is the individual -- you can see just right up over his right shoulder -- this is the individual that hunted the monkey from the last picture that I showed you. OK, take a look at his shirt. You know, take a look at his face. Bush meat is one of the central crises, which is occurring in our population right now, in humanity, on this planet. But it can't be the fault of somebody like this. OK? And solving it cannot be his responsibility alone. There's no easy solutions, but what I'm saying to you is that we neglect this problem at our own peril.
Ali također će vas pitati i drugačije pitanje. Ono koje mislim da se svi trebamo pitati, a to je, zašto smo mislili da odgovornost leži na ovoj osobi ovdje. Ovo je osoba – možete vidjeti gore preko njegova desnog ramena – to je osoba koja je lovila majmuna sa prošle slike, koju sam vam pokazao. U redu, pogledajte njegovu košulju. Pogledajte njegovo lice. Izlov divljih životinja jedna je od središnjih kriza koja se odvija u našoj populaciji trenutno, u čovječanstvu, na ovom planetu. Ali ne može biti krivica nekog ovakvoga. U redu? I njeno rješavanje ne može biti samo njegova odgovornost. Nema lakih rješenja, ali ono što vam govorim jest da zanemarujemo ovaj problem na vlastiti rizik.
So, in 1998, along with my mentors Don Burke and Colonel Mpoudi-Ngole, we went to actually start this work in Central Africa, to work with hunters in this part of the world. And my job -- at that time I was a post-doctoral fellow, and I was really tasked with setting this up. So I said to myself, "OK, great -- we're gonna collect all kinds of specimens. We're gonna go to all these different locations. It's going to be wonderful." You know, I looked at the map; I picked out 17 sites; I figured, no problem. (Laughter)
Dakle, 1998., sa svojim mentorima Donom Burkeom i Pukovnikom Mpoudi-Ngoleom, otišli smo stvarno započeti taj posao u središnju Afriku, raditi sa lovcima iz ovog dijela svijeta. I moj posao – u to vrijeme bio sam postdoktorant, zadužen za to da stvari normalno funkcioniraju. Stoga sam si rekao: „U redu, super – skupit ćemo razne vrste uzoraka. Otići ćemo na sve te različite lokacije. Bit će predivno.“ Znate, pogledao sam na kartu, odabrao 17 lokacija i zaključio da nema problema. (Smijeh)
Needless to say, I was drastically wrong. This is challenging work to do. Fortunately, I had and continue to have an absolutely wonderful team of colleagues and collaborators in my own team, and that's the only way that this work can really occur. We have a whole range of challenges about this work.
Bespotrebno je reći da sam bio potpuno u krivu. Ovo je posao koji predstavlja pravi izazov. Srećom, imao sam i nastavio imati predivan tim kolega i suradnika u svom timu, i to je jedini način na koji se ovaj posao zapravo može obavljati. Imamo niz izazova u ovom poslu.
One of them is just obtaining trust from individuals that we work with in the field. The person you see on the right hand side is Paul DeLong-Minutu. He's one of the best communicators that I've really ever dealt with. When I arrived I didn't speak a word of French, and I still seemed to understand what it was he was saying. Paul worked for years on the Cameroonian national radio and television, and he spoke about health issues. He was a health correspondent. So we figured we'd hire this person -- when we got there he could be a great communicator. When we would get to these rural villages, though, what we found out is that no one had television, so they wouldn't recognize his face. But -- when he began to speak they would actually recognize his voice from the radio. And this was somebody who had incredible potential to spread aspects of our message, whether it be with regards to wildlife conservation or health prevention.
Jedan od njih je zadržavanje povjerenja osoba s kojima radimo na ovom području. Osoba koju vidite na desnoj strani je Paul DeLong-Minutu. On je jedan od najboljih razgovornika s kojima sam ikad radio. Kada sam došao, nisam znao ni riječ francuskog, ali sam uspijevao razumjeti što je govorio. Paul je godinama radio na kamerunskom državnom radiju i televiziji i govorio je o zdravstvenim problemima. Bio je dopisnik za zdravstvo. Stoga smo zaključili da ćemo zaposliti tu osobu, kad dođemo tamo moći će odlično komunicirati. Kada bismo stigli u ta nerazvijena sela, otkrili bismo doduše da nitko nema televizor, pa neće prepoznati njegovo lice. Ali – kad bi počeo pričati prepoznali bi njegov glas s radija. I to je bio netko sa nevjerojatnim potencijalom da širi različita gledišta naše poruke, bez obzira radilo se o očuvanju divljine ili o zdravstvenoj prevenciji.
Often we run into obstacles. This is us coming back from one of these very rural sites, with specimens from 200 individuals that we needed to get back to the lab within 48 hours. I like to show this shot -- this is Ubald Tamoufe, who's the lead investigator in our Cameroon site. Ubald laughs at me when I show this photo because of course you can't see his face. But the reason I like to show the shot is because you can see that he's about to solve this problem. (Laughter) Which -- which he did, which he did. Just a few quick before and after shots. This was our laboratory before. This is what it looks like now. Early on, in order to ship our specimens, we had to have dry ice. To get dry ice we had to go to the breweries -- beg, borrow, steal to get these folks to give it to us. Now we have our own liquid nitrogen. I like to call our laboratory the coldest place in Central Africa -- it might be. And here's a shot of me, this is the before shot of me. (Laughter) No comment.
Često nailazimo na prepreke. Ovo smo mi dok se vraćamo iz jednog od tih vrlo zabačenih područja, sa uzorcima od 200 pojedinaca koje smo morali donijeti u laboratorij u roku od 48 sati. Volim pokazivati ovu fotografiju - ovo je Ubald Tamoufe, glavni istraživač na našem kamerunskom lokalitetu. Ubald mi se smije kada pokazujem ovu fotografiju, jer naravno, ne može se vidjeti njegovo lice. Ali razlog zašto volim pokazivati ovu fotografiju je taj što možete vidjeti da se sprema riješiti ovaj problem. (Smijeh) Što – što je i napravio. Što je i napravio. Samo nekoliko brzih prije i poslije snimaka. Ovo je bio naš laboratorij prije. Ovako izgleda sada. U početku, kako bismo poslali naše uzorke, morali smo imati suhi led. Da bismo dobili suhi led morali smo ići u pivovare – moliti, posuđivati, krasti da bismo naveli ove ljude da nam ga daju. Sad imamo naš vlastiti tekući dušik. Volim zvati naš laboratorij najhladnijim mjestom u središnjoj Africi – mogao bi biti. I evo i slika mene. Ovo je slika prije. (Smijeh) Bez komentara.
So what happened? So during the 10 years that we've been doing this work, we actually surprised ourselves. We made a number of discoveries. And what we've found is that if you look in the right place, you can actually monitor the flow of these viruses into human populations. That gave us a tremendous amount of hope. What we've found is a whole range of new viruses in these individuals, including new viruses in the same group as HIV -- so, brand new retroviruses. And let's face it, any new retrovirus in the human population -- it's something we should be aware of. It's something we should be following. It's not something that we should be surprised by.
Dakle, što se dogodilo? Tijekom 10 godina dok smo ovo radili, zapravo smo iznenadili same sebe. Ostvarili smo niz otkrića. I što smo otkrili jest da ako gledate na pravom mjestu, možete zapravo nadgledati tijek ovih virusa u ljudsku populaciju. To nam je dalo ogromnu količinu nade. Ono što smo našli jest ogroman raspon novih virusa u ovim pojedincima, uključujući i nove viruse iz iste grupe iz koje je i HIV, dakle posve novi retrovirusi. A suočimo se s tim, svaki novi retrovirus u ljudskoj populaciji – nešto je čega trebamo biti svjesni. Nešto je što bi trebali slijediti. Nije nešto što bi nas trebalo iznenaditi.
Needless to say in the past these viruses entering into these rural communities might very well have gone extinct. That's no longer the case. Logging roads provide access to urban areas. And critically, what happens in central Africa doesn't stay in Central Africa. So, once we discovered that it was really possible that we could actually do this monitoring, we decided to move this from research, to really attempt to phase up to a global monitoring effort. Through generous support and partnership scientifically with Google.org and the Skoll Foundation, we were able to start the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative and begin work in four different sites in Africa and Asia. Needless to say, different populations from different parts of the world have different sorts of contact. So it's not just hunters in Central Africa. It's also working in live animal markets -- these wet markets -- which is exactly the place where SARS emerged in Asia. But really, this is just the beginning from our perspective.
Nepotrebno je reći da su mnoge ruralne zajednice u prošlosti, zbog ulaska ovih virusa u njih, izumrle. To više nije slučaj. Prometnice pružaju pristup urbanim područjima. I presudno, što se dogodi u središnjoj Africi, ne ostaje u središnjoj Africi. Dakle, kad smo otkrili da je zapravo moguće ostvariti ovaj nadzor, odlučili smo prebaciti ovo iz istraživanja u stvarni pokušaj da unaprijedimo to u globalni nadzorni pokušaj. Kroz velikodušne potpore i znanstvena partnerstva sa Google.org i Skoll zakladom mogli smo započeti globalnu inicijativu za predviđanje virusa i počeli rad na 4 različita mjesta u Africi i Aziji. Naravno, različite populacije iz različitih dijelova svijeta u različitim su doticajima. Dakle, nisu samo lovci u središnjoj Africi. Tu je također rad na tržnicama živim životinjama - ove mokre tržnice – što je zapravo i mjesto gdje je SARS izbio u Aziji. Ali zapravo, iz naše perspektive ovo je tek početak.
Our objective right now, in addition to deploying to these sites and getting everything moving, is to identify new partners because we feel like this effort needs to be extended to probably 20 or more sites throughout the world -- to viral hotspots -- because really the idea here is to cast an incredibly wide net so that we can catch these things, ideally, before they make it to blood banks, sexual networks, airplanes. And that's really our objective. There was a time not very long ago when the discovery of unknown organisms was something that held incredible awe for us. It had potential to really change the way that we saw ourselves, and thought about ourselves.
Naš trenutni cilj je, u dodatku razmještanja na ova mjesta i pokretanja svega, je traženje novih partnera zato što mislimo da ovaj trud treba biti proširen na vjerojatno 20 ili više mjesta na svijetu – na virusna žarišta – zato što je prava ideja da stvorimo nevjerojatno široku mrežu, tako da možemo uhvatiti ovakve stvari, idealno, prije nego što dođu do banaka krvi, seksualnih mreža, zrakoplova. I to je upravo naš cilj. Postojalo je vrijeme, ne tako daleko u prošlosti kada je otkriće nepoznatih organizama bilo nešto što je izazivalo strahopoštovanje kod nas. Imalo je potencijal da promijeni način na koji vidimo jedni druge i mislimo o sebi samima.
Many people, I think, on our planet right now despair, and they think we've reached a point where we've discovered most of the things. I'm going tell you right now: please don't despair. If an intelligent extra-terrestrial was taxed with writing the encyclopedia of life on our planet, 27 out of 30 of these volumes would be devoted to bacteria and virus, with just a few of the volumes left for plants, fungus and animals, humans being a footnote; interesting footnote but a footnote nonetheless. This is honestly the most exciting period ever for the study of unknown life forms on our planet. The dominant things that exist here we know almost nothing about. And yet finally, we have the tools, which will allow us to actually explore that world and understand them.
Mnogi ljudi, mislim, na našem planetu, upravo sada, očajavaju, i misle da smo došli do točke kad smo otkrili gotovo sve. Reći ću vam upravo sada: nemojte očajavati. Kada bi inteligentni vanzemaljac dobio zadatak da napiše enciklopediju života na našem planetu, 27 od 30 svezaka bili bi posvećeni bakterijama i virusima, a svega nekoliko svezaka bilo bi posvećeno biljkama, gljivama i životinjama - ljudi bi bili samo fusnota – zanimljiva fusnota, ali ipak fusnota. Ovo je iskreno najuzbudljivije razdoblje do sada za proučavanje nepoznatih oblika života na našem planetu. O dominantnim bićima koja ovdje postoje ne znamo skoro ništa. I na kraju, imamo oruđe koje će nam dopustiti da zapravo istražimo i shvatimo taj svijet.
Thank you very much. (Applause)
Hvala vam najljepša. (Pljesak)