The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, it has brought with it good things and others not so good. However, thanks to this health crisis, it has been possible to observe the need to change our way of life, consumption and the importance of environmental care in order to avoid these types of disease.

In an interview for San Diego Red, biologist Arturo Angeles Castro, told us about a specific animal that today more than ever shows that preserving it will allow humans to continue living, but above all to overcome the coronavirus: The Horseshoe Crab.

"With the exception of the bee that pollinates 85% of everything we eat, this animal is the most important one for mankind right now because without it there is no coronavirus vaccine. Without this animal we will not be able to one day return to our lives, reactivate the economy, go back to a party, visit family, etc" said Arturo Angeles.

This animal that lives on the coast of the United States, in the Gulf of Mexico and on the coasts of Asia, has not only managed to escape death during five mass extinctions on Earth, but has been living on the planet for 445 million years (while human beings have lived only 0.004% of what it has lived), and its blood is blue with copper mixed in.

How will it help find the cure for COVID-19? Through its blood, because instead of having red blood cells to fight the bacteria what its immune system does is it encapsulates the bacteria in a kind of gel, thus neutralizing any harmful effect to its health. This is why the medical field has chosen to use its blood to create a Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, which serves to know if the vaccines are infected with a bacterium or not, according to the Biologist.

This way, as with the vaccines to cure us of measles, chickenpox, rubella, meningitis, polio or hepatitis; it will allow us to get rid of the current pandemic, which has killed millions of people worldwide. A liter of its blood costs approximately 15,000 dollars, said Arturo Angeles.

Unfortunately, "in most of Asia there are almost no Horseshoe Crabs left due to pollution, because there is no environmental regulation; and in the United States there are more because there are more regulation measures and protection. However, every year 600,000 of these animals are captured by the biomedical industry in order to extract their blood. What they do is they take it out of the water where they live, clean it, take it to the laboratory, hold it, put a syringe in the heart and drain it, until they take a third of their blood and then release it," said the expert.

According to Arturo Angeles, they only take this much blood out to give them a chance to survive, but despite this, studies show that the damage is much greater.

"They may survive a few days, but they don't survive as long as one who had a third of his blood taken, because he is now subject to the same powers of nature, which can lead to the crab's death," the biologist said.

This is why Arturo Angeles not only recognizes that "not getting vaccinated is not an option", but he also invites the population to not reduce the Horseshoe Crab's survival capacity through environmental care to decrease pollution in the seas and oceans, which is what can affect these animals that are left free after their blood is removed.

Although there is an option to avoid the use of this crab for the development of vaccines, experts prefer not to use it for conservative reasons or simply do not want to risk using it after years of using the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate.

Finally, Arturo mentioned: "The Horseshoe Crab is a reminder that despite our technology, despite feeling superior to nature, this is an example that we still need nature to survive”.

If you want to know more about this and other topics, you can visit Neurona Ecológica's YouTube channel.

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