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are infectious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites that spread between animals especially vertebrate.
Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. HIV was a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans in the early part of the 20th century, though it has now mutated to a separate human-only disease. Most strains of influenza that infect humans are human diseases, although many strains of swine and bird flu are zoonoses; these viruses occasionally recombine with human strains of the flu and can cause pandemics such as the 1918 Spanish flu or the 2009 swine flu.
Taenia solium infection is one of the neglected tropical diseases with public health and veterinary concern in endemic regions.
Zoonoses can be caused by a range of disease pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites; of 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans, 61% were zoonotic.[5] Most human diseases originated in animals; however, only diseases that routinely involve animal to human transmission, like rabies, are considered direct zoonosis.
Zoonoses have different modes of transmission. In direct zoonosis the disease is directly transmitted from animals to humans through media such as air (influenza) or through bites and saliva (rabies).
In contrast, transmission can also occur via an intermediate species (referred to as a vector), which carry the disease pathogen without getting infected. When humans infect animals, it is called reverse zoonosis or anthroponosis.
Causes
Zoonotic transmission can occur in any context in which there is companionistic (pets), economic (farming, etc.), predatory (hunting, butchering or consuming wild game) or research contact with or consumption of non-human animals, non-human animal products, or non-human animal derivatives (vaccines, etc.).
Insect vectors.
- African sleeping sickness
- Dirofilariasis
- Eastern equine encephalitis
- Japanese encephalitis
- Saint Louis encephalitis
- Tularemia
- Venezuelan equine encephalitis
- West Nile fever
- Western equine encephalitis
- Zika fever.
Lists of diseases
Disease[20] | Pathogen(s) | Animals involved | Mode of transmission |
African sleeping sickness | Trypanosoma bruceirhodesiense | range of wild animals and domestic livestock | transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly |
Angiostrongyliasis | Angiostrongylus cantonensis, Angiostrongylus costaricensis | rats, cotton rats | consuming raw and/or undercooked snails, slugs, other mollusks, crustaceans, monitor lizards, frogs and unwashed vegetables contaminated with larvae |
Anisakiasis | Anisakis | whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, other marine animals | eating raw and/or undercooked fish and squid contaminated with eggs |
Anthrax | Bacillus anthracis | commonly – grazing herbivores such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, horses, and pigs | by ingestion, inhalation or skin contact of spores |
Baylisascariasis | Baylisascaris spp. | raccoons, badgers, skunks, bears, pandas, fishers, martens, kinkajous, marmots | ingestion of eggs in feces |
Barmah Forest fever | Barmah Forest virus | kangaroos, wallabies, opossums | mosquito bite |
Bird flu | Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 | wild birds, domesticated birds such as chickens[21] | close contact |
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy | Prions | cattle | eating infected meat |
Brucellosis | Brucella spp. | cattle, goats | infected milk or meat |
Bubonic plague, Pneumonic plague, Septicemic plague | Yersinia pestis | rabbits, hares, rodents, ferrets, goats, sheep, camels | flea bite |
Cat-scratch disease | Bartonella henselae, Bartonella quintana | cats | bites or scratches from infected cats |
Chagas disease | Trypanosoma cruzi | armadillos, Triatominae (kissing bug) | bite |
Clamydiosis / Enzootic abortion | Chlamydophila abortus | domestic livestock, particularly sheep | close contact with postpartum ewes |
Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease | PrPvCJD | cattle | eating meat from animals with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) |
Cryptococcosis | Cryptococcus neoformans | commonly – birds like pigeons | inhaling fungi |
Cryptosporidiosis | Cryptosporidium spp. | cattle, dogs, cats, mice, pigs, horses, deer, sheep, goats, rabbits, leopard geckos, birds | ingesting cysts from water contaminated with feces |
Cysticercosis and taeniasis | Taenia solium, Taenia asiatica, Taenia saginata | commonly – pigs and cattle | consuming water, soil or food contaminated with the tapeworm eggs (cysticercosis) or raw or undercooked pork contaminated with the cysticerci (taeniasis) |
Dirofilariasis | Dirofilaria spp. | dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals, cats, monkeys, raccoons, bears, muskrats, rabbits, leopards, seals, sea lions, beavers, ferrets, reptiles | mosquito bite |
Eastern equine encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis | Eastern equine encephalitis virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Western equine encephalitis virus | horses, donkeys, zebras, birds | mosquito bite |
Ebola virus disease (a haemorrhagic fever) | Ebolavirus spp. | chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, shrews, forest antelope and porcupines | through body fluids, organs and ticks |
Other haemorrhagic fevers (Marburg viral haemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever[22]) | Varies – commonly viruses | varies (sometimes unknown) – commonly camels, rabbits, hares, hedgehogs, cattle, sheep, goats, horses and swine | infection usually occurs through direct contact with infected animals |
Echinococcosis | Echinococcus spp. | commonly – dogs, foxes, jackals, wolves, coyotes, sheep, pigs, rodents | ingestion of infective eggs from contaminated food or water with feces of an infected, definitive host and/or fur |
Foodborne illnesses (commonly diarrheal diseases) | Campylobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Salmonellaspp., Listeria spp., Shigellaspp. and Trichinella spp. | animals domesticated for food production (cattle, poultry) | raw and/or undercooked food made from animals and unwashed vegetables contaminated with feces |
Fasciolosis | Fasciola hepatica, Fasciola gigantica | sheep, cattle, buffaloes | ingesting contaminated plants |
Gnathostomiasis | Gnathostoma spp. | dogs, minks, opossums, cats, lions, tigers, leopards, raccoons, poultry, other birds, frogs | raw and/or undercooked fish or meat |
Giardiasis | Giardia lamblia | beavers, other rodents, raccoons, deer, cattle, goats, sheep, dogs, cats | ingesting spores and cysts in food and water contaminated with feces |
Glanders | Burkholderia mallei. | horses, donkeys | direct contact |
Hantavirus | Hantavirus spp. | deer mice, cotton rats and other rodents | exposure to feces, urine, saliva or bodily fluids |
Histoplasmosis | Histoplasma capsulatum | birds, bats | inhaling fungi in guano |
Influenza | Influenza A virus | horses, pigs, domestic and wild birds, wild aquatic mammals such as seals and whales, minks and farmed carnivores | droplets transmitted through air[23][24] |
Japanese encephalitis | Japanese encephalitis virus | pigs, water birds | mosquito bite |
Kyasanur Forest disease | Kyasanur Forest disease virus | rodents, shrews, bats, monkeys | tick bite |
Leprosy | Mycobacterium leprae, Mycobacterium lepromatosis | armadillos, monkeys, rabbits, mice[25] | direct contact, including meat consumption. However, scientists believe most infections are spread human to human.[26][25] |
La Crosse encephalitis | La Crosse virus | chipmunks, tree squirrels | mosquito bite |
Leptospirosis | Leptospira interrogans | rats, mice, pigs, horses, goats, sheep, cattle, buffaloes, opossums, raccoons, mongooses, foxes, dogs | direct or indirect contact with urine of infected animals |
Lyme disease | Borrelia burgdorferi | deer, wolves, dogs, birds, rodents, rabbits, hares, reptiles | tick bite |
Orf | Orf virus | goats, sheep | close contact |
Psittacosis | Chlamydophila psittaci | macaws, cockatiels, budgerigars, pigeons, sparrows, ducks, hens, gulls and many other bird species | contact with bird droplets |
Q fever | Coxiella burnetii | livestock and other domestic animals such as dogs and cats | inhalation of spores, contact with bodily fluid or faeces |
Rabies | Rabies virus | commonly – dogs, bats, monkeys, raccoons, foxes, skunks, cattle, goats, sheep, wolves, coyotes, groundhogs, horses, opossums, mongooses and cats | through saliva by biting, or through scratches from an infected animal |
Rat-bite fever | Streptobacillus moniliformis, Spirillum minus | rats, mice | bites of rats but also urine and mucus secretions |
Rift Valley fever | Phlebovirus | livestock, buffaloes, camels | mosquito bite, contact with bodily fluids, blood, tissues, breathing around butchered animals and/or raw milk |
Rocky Mountain spotted fever | Rickettsia rickettsii | dogs, rodents | tick bite |
Ross River fever | Ross River virus | kangaroos, wallabies, horses, opossums, birds, flying foxes | mosquito bite |
Saint Louis encephalitis | Saint Louis encephalitis virus | birds | mosquito bite |
Swine influenza | any strain of the influenza virus endemic in pigs (excludes H1N1 swine flu, which is a human virus) | pigs | close contact |
Taenia crassiceps infection | Taenia crassiceps | wolves, coyotes, jackals, foxes | contact with soil contaminated with feces |
Toxocariasis | Toxocara canis, Toxocara cati | dogs, foxes, cats | ingestion of eggs in soil, fresh or unwashed vegetables and/or undercooked meat |
Toxoplasmosis | Toxoplasma gondii | cats, livestock, poultry | exposure to cat feces, organ transplantation, blood transfusion, contaminated soil, water, grass, unwashed vegetables, unpasteurized dairy products and undercooked meat |
Trichinosis | Trichinella spp. | rodents, pigs, horses, bears, walruses, dogs, foxes, crocodiles, birds | eating undercooked meat |
Tuberculosis | Mycobacterium bovis | infected cattle, deer, llamas, pigs, domestic cats, wild carnivores (foxes, coyotes) and omnivores (possums, mustelids and rodents) | milk, exhaled air, sputum, urine, faeces and pus from infected animals |
Tularemia | Francisella tularensis | lagomorphs (type A), rodents (type B), birds | ticks, deer flies, and other insects including mosquitoes |
West Nile fever | Flavivirus | birds, horses | mosquito bite |
Zika fever | Zika virus | chimpanzees, monkeys, apes, baboons | mosquito bite, sexual intercourse, blood transfusion and sometimes bites of monkeys |