Africa records 63% jump in diseases spread from animals – WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said there has been a 63% rise in diseases spread from animals to humans in Africa in the past 10 years.

READ ALSO: Climate change fuelling disease in Africa – WHO

The Organisation said this in a statement on Thursday,  noting that Africa faces a growing threat from zoonotic diseases such as monkeypox, with the continent recording a 63% rise in such outbreaks over the past decade.

A WHO analysis found 1,843 “public health events,” such as disease outbreaks, in Africa between 2001 and 2022.

Thirty percent of those events were outbreaks of diseases spread to humans by animals, which are known as zoonotic diseases.

Ebola is included among these diseases, for example, as well as dengue fever, anthrax, the plague and monkeypox.

WHO’s Africa director Matshidiso Moeti was quoted in the statement as saying that poor transport infrastructure had once limited mass zoonotic infections on the continent.

But Africa could become a “hot spot for emerging infectious diseases,” she warned, as improved transport links raise the threat of zoonotic pathogens traveling to cities.

Moeti urged researchers with different specialties to collaborate closely to stem zoonotic diseases. “Only when we break down the walls between disciplines can we tackle all aspects of the response,” she said.

Scientists have frequently sounded the alarm about the risk of animal-born diseases, especially as growing human populations come into closer contact with wild species through hunting or habitat loss.

The period covered by the analysis included the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The novel coronavirus emerged in China from a suspected animal source before becoming classified as a human disease as it spread.

PR/MTO