A global study mapping human diseases that come from animals
like tuberculosis, AIDS, bird flu or Rift Valley fever has found
that just 13 such diseases are responsible for 2.4 billion cases
of human illness and 2.2 million deaths a year. The vast
majority of infections and deaths from so-called zoonotic
diseases are in poor or middle-income countries, but "hotspots"
are also cropping up in the United States and Europe where
diseases are newly infecting humans, becoming particularly
virulent, or are developing drug resistance. And exploding
global demand for livestock products means the problem is likely
to get worse, researchers said. "From cyst-causing tapeworms to
avian flu, zoonoses present a major threat to human and animal
health," said Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food
safety expert with the International Livestock Research
Institute (ILRI) in Kenya and lead author of the study. She said
targeting these diseases in the hardest hit countries is crucial
to protecting global health, and fa