Doctors and veterinarians need to work together to tackle the increasing global threat of zoonotic viral diseases spread by non-human vertebrate hosts including dogs, cattle, chickens and mosquitoes - according to a review in the November issue of Journal of Internal Medicine.
An estimated 50 million people acquired zoonotic diseases between 2000 and 2005 and up to 78,000 have died, reports Dr Jonathan Heeney, Chair of the Department of Virology at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands.
And the diseases responsible for the majority of zoonotic illnesses, and a third of the deaths in the study period, appear to be increasing. This is particularly worrying because there are no effective vaccines for some of the most common zoonotic viruses.
"For instance there has been a global resurgence in the Dengue virus which is transmitted between monkeys in the jungle by the mosquitoes that feed on them. The cycle can move into nearby urban areas where it can then be transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes" says Dr Heeney.
"This has been attributed to regional population growth around large cities, increased transportation and failing public control measures."
Recent publicity about the risk of an H5N1 (bird flu) epidemic which killed just over half of the 145 people infected during the study period has centered on the risk of human-to-human transmission. It has also stressed the increased risk that humans face from living in close proximity to large concentrations of birds.
"Viral infections with zoonotic potential can become serious killers once they are able to establish the necessary adaptations for efficient human-to-human transmission under conditions sufficient to reach epidemic proportions" says Dr Heeney.
"That is why it is so important for experts from all walks of medicine to work more closely together.
"Vaccines have been very successful at eradicati
'"/>
Contact: Annette Whibley
wizard.media@virgin.net
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
8-Nov-2006