Comments on: New insight on an ancient disease: Malaria, like HIV, came from chimps

By: TEDxSalford – Fighting Disease, Thinking Differently - TEDxSalford

TEDxSalford – Fighting Disease, Thinking Differently - TEDxSalford — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 23:56:44 +0000

[...] scattering of polio cases across the world, changing it from almost eradicated to eradicated. Malaria is another disease under the microscope in Bill Gates’ talk exploring how we stop a deadly [...]

By: Doby Vandencock

Doby Vandencock — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

What? HIV from that creatures? How does it came? Did the human make some relation with that animal? I can’t believe it…

By: Janet Ginsburg

Janet Ginsburg — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is absolutely brilliant bio-sleuthing. But I wonder about the traditional delineation of animal versus human diseases. Although the common definition of a zoonosis is an animal disease that can infect humans, it may be more useful to redefine it as diseases that affect multiple animal species, including humans. We are, after all, animals, too, which is why these pathogens are able to “jump.” This is business-as-usual biology. In fact, in just the last couple of months, a second strain of swine/avian/human flu (passes pig to pig, pig to human – not sure about human to human) has been identified, along with a strain of ebolavirus Reston in pigs in the Philippines that passes to people (links re both here: http://bit.ly/gcLew). It goes both ways, too, with human pathogens or human-mediated superbugs (e.g. MRSA) affecting other animals. To quote Milt Friend, “Disease is an outcome” ( http://bit.ly/2VyKkB) – whether of habitat loss, new proximities, trade, travel, or climate change.