Zoonotic Diseases: Understanding and List of Illnesses Transmitted from Animals to Humans
In the past, zoonotic diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and glanders were responsible for widespread illness and death before the introduction of new hygiene regulations. Today, with over 75% of new diseases discovered in the last decade being zoonotic, it is crucial to understand these diseases, their transmission, and prevention methods.
Zoonotic diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans through direct contact, indirect contact, vector-borne, and food-borne means. Direct contact involves coming into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected animal, while indirect contact occurs when coming into contact with an area where infected animals live or roam, or by touching an object that has been contaminated by an infected animal.
Examples of zoonotic diseases include rabies, Lyme disease, malaria, and salmonella infection. Dengue, malaria, and chikungunya are mosquito-borne diseases more common in certain areas, while E. coli infection is often caused by touching infected animals or handling contaminated food, with cows carrying E. coli germs on their udders. Humans can also get psittacosis from feathers, secretions, and droppings of infected birds.
Water resources contaminated by manure can also contain zoonotic bacteria. Other well-known zoonotic diseases include anthrax, avian influenza, bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, cat scratch fever, Ebola, West Nile virus, Hansen's disease (leprosy), Zika fever, trichinosis, swine influenza, histoplasmosis, and various types of vector-borne diseases. Vector-borne diseases are transferred from an infected animal to a human through a living organism called a vector, which is often an arthropod such as a mosquito, tick, flea, or louse.
Lyme disease is transmitted through tick bites and can be treated using antibiotics. Symptoms of psittacosis include fever, headache, and dry cough, and in serious cases, it may cause pneumonia and require a hospital visit. People with a weakened immune system are more susceptible to zoonotic diseases.
Prevention measures include keeping hands clean, choosing a pet wisely, preventing bites from mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, handling food safely, researching diseases before travel, and taking precautionary steps with vaccines. Common prevention methods for zoonotic diseases focus on reducing contact between humans and animals, controlling vectors, vaccination, environmental management, and education.
Limiting Contact Between Humans and Animals: Avoiding direct contact with wild animals, especially those that appear sick or dead, reduces transmission risk. Limiting human contact with both wild and domestic animals helps lower the risk of zoonoses such as rabies, hantavirus, and plague.
Vaccination Programs: Vaccinating pets, especially dogs and cats, against diseases like rabies is crucial in preventing zoonotic transmission to humans. Vaccination is also important in livestock to reduce disease reservoirs. Rabies vaccination of pets is a primary preventive measure recommended by health authorities.
Vector Control: Controlling vectors such as ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, and rodents reduces the spread of zoonotic agents. Public health programs often include vector control and environmental cleanup to manage disease-carrying insects and animals.
Proper Animal Husbandry and Welfare: Implementing good husbandry practices and minimizing unnecessary antibiotic use in livestock help prevent zoonotic infections and antimicrobial resistance. Countries have developed action plans focusing on surveillance, infection prevention, and proper antibiotic use in animals.
Public Education and Hygiene: Educating the public about zoonotic risks, promoting handwashing after animal contact, and safe food handling practices are vital. Awareness campaigns inform people about avoiding risky behaviors, such as hunting bush meat or interacting with wild animals.
Collaboration Across Sectors: Managing zoonoses requires cooperation among human health, animal health, and environmental specialists (One Health approach). Coordinated surveillance and rapid response systems aid in controlling outbreaks and reducing zoonotic disease transmission.
In summary, zoonotic disease prevention relies on a combination of reducing human-animal contact, vector control, vaccination, proper animal management, hygiene education, and multi-sector collaboration to effectively reduce risks to human health.
- Understanding the transmission and prevention methods of zoonotic diseases is crucial for health-and-wellness, as many zoonotic diseases like malaria, rabies, and salmonella infection can be transmitted from animals to humans through direct or indirect contact, vector-borne, and food-borne means.
- Prevention measures for zoonotic diseases focus on reducing contact between humans and animals, controlling vectors, vaccination, environmental management, and education in fitness-and-exercise and health-and-wellness, such as keeping hands clean, choosing a pet wisely, preventing bites from mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, handling food safely, and promoting public education about zoonotic risks and hygiene practices.
