[ti:When Animals Make People Sick]
[ar:Jim Tedder]
[al:Agriculture Report]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
[00:04.79]Researchers estimate that more than two billion people a year
[00:09.98]get diseases spread by animals.
[00:13.47]More than two million of them die.
[00:16.71]Delia Grace is a veterinary epidemiologist
[00:22.60]-- an expert in the spread of diseases involving animals.
[00:26.99]She is also a food safety expert.
[00:31.18]She works at the International Livestock Research Institute
[00:35.66]in Nairobi, Kenya.
[00:37.86]She explains that diseases transmitted
[00:41.56]between animals and people are called zoonoses.
[00:46.09]DELIA GRACE: "A majority of human diseases are actually zoonotic.
[00:49.58]More than sixty percent of human diseases
[00:51.82]are transmitted from other vertebrate animals.
[00:55.06]Some of these diseases are pretty common.
[00:57.65]Some of the food-borne diseases and also diseases
[01:00.98]such as tuberculosis, leptospirosis are not uncommon.
[01:04.67]Others are quite rare."
[01:06.31]Delia Grace says there are many different infection pathways.
[01:10.89]Probably the most common one is for people to get sick from food.
[01:16.47]Other transmission pathways include direct contact with animals.
[01:22.14]And some diseases can be transmitted through water or through the air.
[01:28.62]DELIA GRACE: "Diseases like avian influenza or mad cow disease
[01:31.60]have actually killed very few people.
[01:33.70]But they are of interest because some of them have the potential
[01:37.39]to kill a lot of people -- diseases like the Spanish flu
[01:40.82]after the First World War or HIV/AIDS,
[01:44.67]both of which were originally zoonoses."
[01:46.67]Delia Grace is the lead author of a new report
[01:50.05]called "Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots."
[01:56.23]She points out that poverty and disease are closely linked,
[02:01.55]so preventing the transmission of animal diseases
[02:05.65]could help reduce poverty.
[02:08.44]The report, for Britain's Department for International Development,
[02:13.68]lists places where the diseases are most common.
[02:18.50]The report lists places where a disease has existed for a long time,
[02:24.83]a so-called endemic zoonosis, as well as places with new threats.
[02:31.80]DELIA GRACE: "So in terms of the hotspots of the zoonosis
[02:35.04]which are there all the time -- not the new zoonosis,
[02:37.92]but what we call the endemic zoonosis
[02:40.06]-- we identified three countries
[02:41.60]which bear the greatest burden of these diseases.
[02:44.41]And those are India, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
[02:47.84]But in terms of the new diseases
[02:50.23]-- the diseases which haven't been there,
[02:52.13]but are emerging -- the hotspots are very different.
[02:54.67]They appear to be western United States and western Europe."
[02:58.36]Delia Grace says things could get worse in the coming years
[03:02.09]as meat production increases to feed a growing world population.
[03:07.67]High production farms often raise animals close together.
[03:12.51]Crowding can allow diseases to spread quickly.
[03:17.05]Another concern is the use of antibiotics in food animals,
[03:22.12]not only to prevent and treat diseases but to increase growth.
[03:27.81]The report says an "incentive-based" system
[03:31.90]to encourage safer methods of raising animals
[03:35.98]could be more effective than increasing food inspections.
[03:40.90]For example, small farmers could receive training
[03:45.79]and other help that would lead to official certification
[03:50.48]that their products are safe.
[03:53.13]And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
[03:58.06]I'm Jim Tedder.