What factors are increasing zoonosis emergence? (Diseases transmitted from animals to human)
#environment #forest #deforestation #wildlife #AnimalRights #AnimalAgriculture #antibiotics #wetmarket #zoonosis #meat #milk #dairy #climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GoVegan
21-May-2025
Unlocking the secrets of #bats' #immunity
Organoids unveil new defense mechanisms against #zoonotic #viruses
Bats are known as natural hosts for highly pathogenic viruses such as MERS- and SARS-related coronaviruses, as well as the Marburg and Nipah viruses. In contrast to the severe and often fatal disease outcomes these viruses cause in humans, bats generally do not show obvious signs of viral illness following infection. An international research team led by Dr. Max Kellner and Prof. Josef Penninger, Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), has developed an innovative organoid research platform that allowed them to closely investigate the cellular antiviral defense mechanisms of mucosal epithelial tissues of bats. The results have now been published in Nature Immunology and could pave the way for the development of new therapies against viral diseases.
7-May-2025
#BirdFlu study points to risk of another pandemic
First major global review of bird flu in cats shows an emerging threat of a human #pandemic
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1083054 #science #AvianInfluenza #H5N1 #virus #zoonosis #publicHealth
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — It’s spring, the birds are migrating and bird flu (H5N1) is rapidly evolving into the possibility of a human pandemic. On May 7, researchers from the University of Maryland School of Public Health published a major study in Open Forum Infectious Diseases documenting research on bird flu in cats and calling for urgent surveillance of cats to help avoid human-to-human transmission.
"Bird flu, feared as a possible pandemic, poses growing risk to people as pathogen spreads, scientists warn"
Content warning on the video there: footage from animal farms.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-risk-as-pathogen-spreads-60-minutes-transcript/
If you're wondering why there hasn't been more news, it's because... **Don't test, Don't find.**
#birdFlu #pandemic #epidemic #zoonosis #panzootic #mooFlu #cows
More than 100 federal scientists who track bird flu, including vaccine and food safety experts, have been laid off. This comes as the deadly pathogen rips through dairy herds and poultry flocks.
When there's a new pandemic just present the same arm over and over again for the shots. Easy, faster and therefore more effective they figured out. But what about preventing the next pandemic beforehand?
#vaccination #pandemic #zoonosis #emergingdisease
The Elephant in the Room by Liz Kalaugher review – how we make #animals sick
From #frogs to ferrets, an eye-opening account of the ways we affect the #health of other species – and vice versa
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/17/the-elephant-in-the-room-liz-kalaugher-review
#science #BookReview #NonFiction #ecology #zoonosis
For so many people, it's hard to fathom how deadly pathogens can cross from animal hosts to human hosts. I think it's important to point out cases of #zoonosis where sturdy work has been done to show potential links from a likely reservoir. This is even more important since our last pandemic. If the wider public saw more examples of zoonoses, then perhaps this major source of emerging human pathogens would not continue to be enigmatic to the lay public.
Estos días que andamos recordando los 5 años que han pasado desde que el COVID19 nos dejó encerrados en casa y causó estragos que no hemos acertado a digerir, conviene recordar que las epidemias zoonóticas serán cada vez más frecuentes en la medida que no revisemos nuestro modelo insostenible de producción y consumo. Lo cuenta muy bien Rob Wallace en "Grandes granjas, grandes gripes" https://productordesostenibilidad.es/2021/03/grandes-granjas-grandes-gripes/
To add to this discussion a vegan angle: on top of the all the ways humans are raising the dangers to public health by messing around with non-human animals, one of the shared erroneous arguments in recent years has merged with its anti-vegan doppelganger:
"it's a personal choice!"
It's most definitely not a personal choice. Consuming animal body parts and excretions affects those animals, individually, each one. Similarly, when you carry a contagious pathogen, you're not just affecting your own person, you're affecting everyone you contaminate.
This goes full circle with spillovers from humans to other animals. Here's an example article on that: https://theconversation.com/humans-infecting-animals-infecting-humans-from-covid-19-to-bird-flu-preventing-pandemics-requires-protecting-all-species-212679
Infectious diseases can spill over from animals to humans as well as spill back. Each cross-species transmission gives pathogens a chance to evolve and spread even further.
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