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Zoonosis

A zoonosis (/zˈɒnəsɪs, ˌzəˈnsɪs/;[1] plural zoonoses) or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen (an infectious agent, such as a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion) that can jump from a non-human (usually a vertebrate) to a human and vice versa.[1][2][3]

"Zoonotic" redirects here. For the television episode, see Zoonotic (Law & Order: Criminal Intent).

Major modern diseases such as Ebola and salmonellosis are zoonoses. HIV was a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans in the early part of the 20th century, though it has now evolved into a separate human-only disease.[4][5][6] Human infection with animal influenza viruses is rare, as they do not transmit easily to or among humans.[7] However, avian and swine influenza viruses in particular possess high zoonotic potential,[8] and these occasionally recombine with human strains of the flu and can cause pandemics such as the 2009 swine flu.[9] Taenia solium infection is one of the neglected tropical diseases with public health and veterinary concern in endemic regions.[10] Zoonoses can be caused by a range of disease pathogens such as emergent viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites; of 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans, 61% were zoonotic.[11] Most human diseases originated in non-humans; however, only diseases that routinely involve non-human to human transmission, such as rabies, are considered direct zoonoses.[12]


Zoonoses have different modes of transmission. In direct zoonosis the disease is directly transmitted from non-humans to humans through media such as air (influenza) or bites and saliva (rabies).[13] In contrast, transmission can also occur via an intermediate species (referred to as a vector), which carry the disease pathogen without getting sick. When humans infect non-humans, it is called reverse zoonosis or anthroponosis.[14] The term is from Greek: ζῷον zoon "animal" and νόσος nosos "sickness".


Host genetics plays an important role in determining which non-human viruses will be able to make copies of themselves in the human body. Dangerous non-human viruses are those that require few mutations to begin replicating themselves in human cells. These viruses are dangerous since the required combinations of mutations might randomly arise in the natural reservoir.[15]

Rabies

Use in vaccines[edit]

The first vaccine against smallpox by Edward Jenner in 1800 was by infection of a zoonotic bovine virus which caused a disease called cowpox.[86] Jenner had noticed that milkmaids were resistant to smallpox. Milkmaids contracted a milder version of the disease from infected cows that conferred cross immunity to the human disease. Jenner abstracted an infectious preparation of 'cowpox' and subsequently used it to inoculate persons against smallpox. As a result of vaccination, smallpox has been eradicated globally, and mass inoculation against this disease ceased in 1981.[87] There are a variety of vaccine types, including traditional inactivated pathogen vaccines, subunit vaccines, live attenuated vaccines. There are also new vaccine technologies such as viral vector vaccines and DNA/RNA vaccines, which include many of the COVID-19 vaccines.[88]

AVMA Collections: Zoonosis Updates

WHO tropical diseases and zoonoses

Detection and Forensic Analysis of Wildlife and Zoonotic Disease

Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

. United Nations Environment Programme

A message from nature: coronavirus