FROM ANIMALS TO HUMANS
Ebola is not the only malady known to derive from interspecies contact. Scientists have estimated that six to ten of all infectious diseases in humans are spread from animals. Whether from a bite or other contact, humans have contracted a number of serious diseases from animals.
| Bubonic Plague | Also known as the “Black Death,” the Bubonic plague took down more than a quarter of the population of Europe and Asia in the fourteenth century. The bacterial disease has symptoms including fever, chills, weakness, and swollen and painful lymph nodes, and is carried by fleas on rodents and sometimes cats. |
| Chagas Disease | A frequently fatal infection transmitted by the feces of blood‑feeding bugs called triatomines, which may live on dogs, chickens, or other domesticated animals. |
| HIV | HIV, short for human immunodeficiency, is the virus that causes AIDS. It kills by destroying the human immune system and has been traced back a century from contact with chimps and other primates. HIV was first documented in the United States in 1981. |
| Hantavirus | Hantavirus, carried mostly by deer mice, is contracted by breathing in dust contaminated with mouse droppings. Symptoms include a stiff neck, fever, and confusion. It’s incurable but is generally not fatal. |
| Malaria | Spread by mosquitoes and most prominently found in hot, humid climates, malaria infects 350 million or more people every year. |
| Rabies | While infected dogs are mainly responsible for transmitting this disease by biting humans, many wild animals can carry rabies, including bats. |
| Influenza | Various types of flu viruses begin with an animal “reservoir.” For example, H1N1 (swine flu) began with pigs, and bird flu started with domesticated poultry. |
| Toxoplasmosis | The toxoplasma gondii parasite infects about fifty million Americans, and its primary host is house cats. Transmission to humans is through cat feces, which is why pregnant women are warned against changing litter boxes. |
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