Abstract
Three-quarters of emerging human infectious disease outbreaks are “zoonotic,†meaning they originate from viruses and other pathogens infecting animals that then “jump†species to infect people. This “species jump†by pathogens is not new — it has occurred throughout pre- and recorded history. But in the last half of the last century, with the widespread use of antibiotics and vaccines, many had begun to believe that the era of infectious disease was ending. The story of epidemics, however, is always evolving. As we see clearly now with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to have originated from virus-infected meat or live animals sold in a traditional “wet†food market in Wuhan, China, our hopes for the end of infectious disease were badly misplaced. Over the last 100 years, in fact, there has been growing evidence of not less but more frequent emergence and greater spread of zoonotic pathogens in humans and animals. In recent decades, most of these zoonotic pathogens wer
Highlights
Three-quarters of emerging human infectious disease outbreaks are “zoonotic,” meaning they originate from viruses and other pathogens infecting animals that “jump” species to infect people
As we see clearly with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to have originated from virus-infected meat or live animals sold in a traditional “wet” food market in Wuhan, China, our hopes for the end of infectious disease were badly misplaced
Over the last 100 years, there has been growing evidence of not less but more frequent emergence and greater spread of zoonotic pathogens in humans and animals. Most of these zoonotic pathogens were reported in Europe and the United States
Summary
Source: Human population data were obtained from World Pop; livestock data were obtained from the Gridded Livestock of the World database, composed by Fred Otieno, ILRI. Note: Regions that have high human populations in Africa include East and West Africa; in Asia, relatively high human populations occur in southeast China and India. In general, areas with high human populations also have high poultry and other livestock populations.
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