These spillovers, as they're called, can be deadly, but they're not always fast-moving or bloody, and scientists don't always figure out what happened or come up with a cure. If you've seen the movie "Contagion" or read "The Hot Zone," you've gotten a taste of what happens when an infection jumps from animals to people.
He recounts adventures in the field, netting bats in China, trapping monkeys in Bangladesh, stalking gorillas in the Congo, with the world's leading disease scientists.Up next, planning for the next pandemic, or at least trying to. The author tracks this subject around the world. Diseases that were contained are being set free and the results are potentially catastrophic. It is reckoned that at least 60% of our infections diseases derive from animals. As globalization spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, penetrating ever deeper into the furthest reaches of the planet, we encounter strange and dangerous infections that originate in animals but can be transmitted to humans. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic.
The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. This work examines the emergence and causes of new diseases all over the world, describing a process called "spillover" where illness originates in wild animals before being passed to humans and discusses the potential for the next huge pandemic.
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