Sounds chilling, aint it? Well, i felt the same when i first came across this topic.
EIDs - are infectious diseases whose incidence has increased in the past 20 years and threatens to increase in the near future. EIDs include diseases caused by a newly identified microorganism or newly identified strain of a known microorganism (e.g. SARS, AIDS); new infections resulting from change or evolution of an existing organism (e.g. influenza), a known infection which spreads to a new geographic area or population (e.g. West Nile virus), newly recognized infection in an area undergoing ecologic transformation, and pre-existing and recognized infections reemerging due to drug resistance of their agent or to a breakdown in public health (e.g. tuberculosis).Total Eye Opener
Boy, that really kept me rolling on to the next couple of pages.
The map that i mentioned earlier, uses data spanning 65 years and shows the majority of these new diseases come from wildlife. Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and the US-based University of Georgia and Columbia University's Earth Institute analyzed 335 emerging diseases from 1940 to 2004. They then used computer models to see if the outbreaks correlated with human population density or changes, latitude, rainfall or wildlife biodiversity. Finally, the data was plotted on to maps to reveal the "hotspots" around the globe.
The researchers found that 60% of EID events were caused by "non-human animal" sources. They add that 71% of these outbreaks were "caused by pathogens with a wildlife source". Among the examples listed by the team was the emergence of Nipah virus in Malaysia and the Sars outbreak in China. Others included the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Ebola and West Nile virus. The number of events that originated from wild animals had increased significantly over time.
That pretty much explains our forefathers thoughts on keeping wildlife safe and maintaining the ecosystem - looks like we have crowded the wildlife into ever smaller ares with increasing human population. And these two meeting seem to be the recipe for something crossing over.
'Missing the point'
Because humans had not evolved resistance to these EIDS, the scientists says that the results could be "extraordinarily lethal". The main hotspots were located in low latitude regions, like South Asia and South-East Asia, which were not the financial focus of global funds to prevent the spread of EIDs.
Looks like we have more important matters to discuss than Bhajji and Symmo!
