With monkeypox spreading around the world in the immediate aftermath of Covid-19, there are fears that rising outbreaks of diseases jumping from animals to humans could trigger another pandemic.
While such diseases, called zoonoses, have been around for millennia, they have become more common in recent decades due to deforestation, massive ranching, climate change and other human-induced upheavals in the animal world, experts say.
Other diseases that have jumped from animals to humans include HIV, Ebola, Zika, SARS, MERS, avian flu, and bubonic plague.
And with more than 1,000 cases of monkeypox recorded worldwide in the past month, the UN agency has warned there is a "real" risk of the disease establishing itself in dozens of countries.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said last week that "it's not just about monkeypox" but that the way humans and animals interact has become "unstable."
"The number of times these diseases cross over into humans is increasing" he said.
Monkeypox has not recently jumped to humans: the first human case was identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970 and has since been confined to areas of central and western Africa.
Despite its name, "the latest outbreak of monkeypox has nothing to try to to with monkeys," said Olivier Restif, an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge.
Zoonotic transmission is most often from rodents and outbreaks are spread by person-to-person contact.
Worse Yet To Come?
About 60 percent of all known human infections are zoonotic, as are 75 percent of all new and emerging infectious diseases, according to the United Nations Environment Program.
Zoonotic outbreaks has increased in recent decades due to population growth, livestock growth, and encroachment on wildlife habitats. Wild animals have drastically changed their behavior in response to human activities, migrating from depleted habitats.
Animals with weakened immune systems hanging around people and pets are a sure way to get more pathogen transmission and deforestation has had a major effect.
