Thanks Monica! I suppose the big question is, do outbreaks among mammals make future outbreaks among humans more likely. Intuitively it might seem so, but I can’t think of other examples off the top of my head where there was a known and tracked outbreak of a non-human affecting disease among mammals, which then mutated to become a very contageous outbreak among humans. There may well be cases though I’m unaware of.
This is very different from diseases like the plague, or sleeping sickness where the host animals such as rats or cows spread the disease directly to humans.
Very keen to hear examples if anyone knows of them.
Thanks Monica! I suppose the big question is, do outbreaks among mammals make future outbreaks among humans more likely. Intuitively it might seem so, but I can’t think of other examples off the top of my head where there was a known and tracked outbreak of a non-human affecting disease among mammals, which then mutated to become a very contageous outbreak among humans. There may well be cases though I’m unaware of.
This is very different from diseases like the plague, or sleeping sickness where the host animals such as rats or cows spread the disease directly to humans.
Very keen to hear examples if anyone knows of them.