Animal Ilness Jumps To Huamns, News Release 2/19/2006

[cattlebreeder]

:mad: Growing Number of Diseases Jump to Humans By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
47 minutes ago



Humans risk being overrun by diseases from the animal world, according to researchers who have documented 38 illnesses that have made that jump over the past 25 years.

That's not good news for the spread of bird flu, which experts fear could mutate and be transmitted easily among people.

There are 1,407 pathogens — viruses, bacteria, parasites, protozoa and fungi — that can infect humans, said Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Of those, 58 percent come from animals. Scientists consider 177 of the pathogens to be "emerging" or "re-emerging." Most will never cause pandemics.

Experts fear bird flu could prove an exception. Recent advances in the worldwide march of the H5N1 strain have rekindled fears of a pandemic. The virus has spread across Asia into Europe and Africa.

Controlling bird flu will require renewed focus on the animal world, including the chickens, ducks and other poultry that have been sacrificed by the tens of millions to stem the progress of the virus, experts said at a news conference late Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The strategy has to be looking at how to contain it in the animal world, because once you get into the human side, you're dealing with vaccines and antiretrovirals, which is a whole new realm," said Nina Marano, a veterinarian and public health expert with the National Center for Infectious Diseases.

Bird flu has killed at least 91 people — most of them in Asia — since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. It appears to kill about half the people it infects. However, should it mutate so it can pass from human to human, it likely will grow far less deadly, said Dr. Stanley Lemon, of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

"It is very unlikely that it would maintain that kind of case mortality rate if it made the jump," Lemon said.

Each year, one or two new pathogens and multiple variations of existing threats infect humans for the first time. That pace appears to be unsustainable in the long run because it would imply that people run the risk of being overrun, Woolhouse told reporters.

"Humans have always been attacked by novel pathogens. This process has been going on for millennia. But it does seem to be happening very fast in these modern times," Woolhouse said.

Woolhouse argues that either many of those diseases and other afflictions will not persist in humans or that there is something peculiar today allowing so many of them to take root in humans.

One explanation may be the recent and wide-scale changes in how people interact with the environment in a more densely populated world that is growing warmer and in which travel is faster and move extensive, Marano said. Those changes can ensure that pathogens no longer stay restricted to animals, she added. Examples from recent human history include HIV, Marburg, SARS and other viruses.

That prospect leaves open the question of what future threats await humans.

"It always surprises us. We think that avian flu will be the next emerging disease. My guess is something else might come out before that," said Alan Barrett, of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. "It's very hard to anticipate what comes next."

___

On the Net:

American Association for the Advancement of Science: http://www.aaas.org/

[XxDogloverxX]

this sounds important

[EweToo]

A couple things to consider... even if the 58% is correct for the animal kingdom as a whole, it would be much, much lower for any individual species. And you can look at it this way... the human to human figure for transmission of infectous pathogens would probably be well over 99%.

[NeoBahamut]

An interesting fact is that many dangerous Zoonotic (pathologies trespassed from animal to humans and bis) illnesses (i.e. SARS, Streptococcus suis ) come from an especific region of China, which is being monitored nowadays. :mellow:

[rizzyd]

as the article says, there is always pathogens making the jump from animal to human... always has always will. why, because humans are animals too. as long as there is a small amoutn of genetic material between the two animals in common there is a chance of the pathogen making the jump. ease of mutation as my collage biology professor called it.

take for example the human t-cell lymphocite virus series. in two of the three major viruses it has been traced back to patien zero or genisis and in both cases it was proven that there was a close genetic make up of the original host and humans. htlv- 2 was traced to a young missionary in congo who was attacked by a rhesis monkey. important... you bet ya. whats your blood type?

htlv-3 was traced back to an anthropology professor in 1959. he was studing a tribe in nigeria who as a religious ceramony ate the brain of chimpanzes. after his return to america he developed a series of deseases that was exclusive to certian [SPAM] he ws not a part of. after his death it was determined he had passed it on by way of sexual contact with several co-eds and through blood donations... need i say more?

the point here is yes there is always the threat of a pathogen jumping spieces, yes people will die from it... but on the other hand man kind is helping this along by feeding our herd animals antibotics that help these ''bugs'' to develop resistance long before they make the jump.

sorry... i'll put the nerd back to bed... he's no fun when he's loose. :nerd: