(The New Yorker) – Most new diseases have their origins in animals. So why aren’t we paying more attention to their health?

Diseases cross over very rarely, with less than a tenth of one per cent of animal viruses ever successfully making the leap. And yet from another perspective the crossovers are common: more than two-thirds of emerging diseases in humans have animal origins. Diseases can also travel in the other direction, in what is called reverse zoonosis. “I’ll never forget the call from my colleague at the Bronx Zoo saying they had a tiger testing positive for SARS-CoV-2,” Slavinski said. Her office worked on contact tracing for the big cats. She also does a lot of work with less regal urban friends, such as skunks, bats, and raccoons—“They’ve adapted incredibly well to urban life,” she said—which often means dealing with rabies, perhaps the only zoonotic disease so storied as to have its own adjective. (Read More)