Countering the double-whammy of zoonotic diseases. (Special Section: One health.)

A zoonotic disease (zoonoses) can infect both animals and people and be transmitted between vertebrate animals and people Of the known (approximately 1,400) human pathogens 60 per cent have come from diseases that were first in animals This historical trend has accelerated recently;of the newly emerging diseases in people approximately 75 per cent are believed to have come from animals The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is the most recent example of a pathogen in animals then infecting people