Human Deaths from Animal Diseases on the Rise
By Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 08 November 2006
12:48 pm ET
An estimated 50 million people caught diseases from animals such as
dogs, cattle, chickens and mosquitoes between 2000 and 2005,
according to a new study. Some 78,000 of them died.
The finding reveals the global urgency for doctors to stay vigilant
when it comes to zoonotic illnesses—those transmitted by non-human
animals.
By reviewing past studies, virologist Jonathan Heeney of the
Biomedical Primate Research Center in The Netherlands found the
diseases responsible for the majority of zoonotic illnesses seem to
be increasing.
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