Danger zone UK as animal infections threaten the population

Published on Wednesday 20 February 2008 21:17

ANIMAL diseases, like bird flu and Sars, are the biggest threat to human health in the future and Britain is a hot spot for new infections, leading scientists said yesterday.

Researchers have created a global map of "emerging disease hot spots" which shows there is a risk more viruses will jump the species barrier and infect people.

Overpopulation and intensive food production have made the UK vulnerable to zoonoses – infections which pass from animals to humans.

And humans have evolved no resistance to zoonoses, so the ailments can be extraordinarily lethal.

The study into the spread of the likes of the deadly Ebola and Sars viruses, has revealed that about two-thirds of emerging infectious diseases come from animals and 71.8 per cent of those come from wildlife.

Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the University of Georgia, the Consortium for Conservation Medicine and Columbia University analysed 335 incidents of disease emergence between 1940 and 2004 and found they had risen significantly in that time, plotting them on a map.

Dr Peter Daszak, executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, said: "These maps show that the key threat to public health is where human population and wildlife diversity clash."

He said that the risk in the UK is greater because of high population density, factory farming and antibiotic drug resistance. "You only have to look at mad cow disease emerging from animals and the famous salmonella in eggs scare in the 1980s. That is why the UK is showing up as a hot spot," he said.

"Farmers bringing cattle for slaughter in more centralised areas means that there is a good chance for a pathogen to spread."

Dr Kate Jones, research fellow at ZSL, said that

preserving wildlife areas would reduce the danger. She added: "We're doing so much damage to the planet and we don't know what the consequences are."

Dr Dominic Mellor, veterinary consultant with Health Protection Scotland, agreed that the greater movement of people, food and plants had increased the risk of the spread of zoonoses.

He said: "They are an ever- present risk and surveillance is carried every year. We recognise them as an important issue and are very much a priority for us."

BIRD FLU THE MAIN FEAR

ZOONOSES are defined by the World Health Organisation as "diseases and infections which are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and man".

The current biggest zoonoses-related fear centres on bird-flu, which, if contracted by humans, can be fatal. The strain has killed 164 people worldwide.

Last year, government officials were forced to cull thousands of turkeys in the south of England.

In 2006, restrictions on the movement of poultry meat and breeding eggs were placed on Cellardyke harbour in Fife after a swan which had died from the virus was found there.