# 1695
While we watch the avian flu virus intently, it isn't the only pathogenic threat out there with the potential to wreak havoc on this planet of ours. New emerging, mostly zoonotic diseases are on the rise.
And most are coming from Asia, Latin America, and Tropical Africa.
This report from Nature.com. Follow the link, it is well worth reading in its entirety.
Disease monitors 'looking in the wrong places'
Health leaders need global strategy for spotting disease threats.
Michael Hopkin
The world's health watchdogs are looking in the wrong places for the next dangerous epidemics, according to an analysis of global trends in emerging disease outbreaks over the past few decades.
The study gives a fresh perspective on global disease by tracking the history, from 1940 to 2004, of the emergence and spread of 335 infectious diseases. The extensive work helps to quantify the effect of well-known risk factors, such as population density, on the probability of a disease taking hold in a given area.
Although the data haven't yet been used to map out specific future hotspots for disease, they do suggest that watchdog groups should invest more in monitoring regions such as tropical Africa, Latin America and Asia. These areas have the greatest threats of newly emerging epidemics, say the survey's authors, but they have traditionally received the least surveillance.
A globally coordinated strategy is required to spot and stop outbreaks before they can spread across the world, argues Kate Jones of the Institute of Zoology in London, one of the researchers behind the new report.
"We need to think more broadly, with a global vision," she says. "Everyone will be affected [by new disease outbreaks]. We are all on the same planet — there's nowhere to hide."
