First Ebola, now Zika: inconvenient truths about emerging diseases

In the second time in as many years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a new Global Public Health Emergency: the Zika virus crisis has been born. A new…

Symposium: animal-to-human diseases

Leading scientists, One Health practitioners and international policymakers are speaking this week at the One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing symposium, co-organised by the STEPS-led Dynamic Drivers of…

Bats, people and a complex web of disease transmission

By Kate Jones and Liam Brierley It might seem strange that after millennia of human history, outbreaks of new, ’emerging’ diseases that we’ve never seen before still regularly occur around…

How to prevent epidemics: an optimist’s blog

  “The optimist is someone who believes the future is uncertain.” Leo Szilard   When I first studied epidemiology several decades ago, a story made the rounds that was supposed…

El Niño predictions signal urgent need to prepare for Rift Valley fever epidemics in eastern Africa

Recent climate predictions suggest East Africa may be in line for an epidemic of Rift Valley fever (RVF) – an infectious disease which can hit people, their livestock and livelihoods,…

What does systems thinking for rabies control mean for rabies research?

Rabies, in many ways, is an atypical zoonosis. It continues to feature as a priority disease by multiple national as well as international agencies. There is substantial research evidence regarding…

Hunger and HIV: have we misread the landscape?

Some of the most important questions we have concern large and extreme events of which we have little experience and few examples. We don’t learn nearly as much as we…

Ebola: identifying the true game-changers

Compared to this time last year, news about Ebola is hugely more encouraging. Although not over, the number of new cases per week tends to be in single figures instead…

More about the research

Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, Myanmar pig production is expected to grow rapidly over the coming decades. Livestock intensification This growth is being accompanied by an intensification…