1. What is a zoonosis? What proportion of human infectious diseases are zoonoses?
Zoonoses are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. At least 30% of all infectious diseases in human are zoonosis.
2. What viral disease was eradicated successfully by 1979? What characteristic of this virus allowed its eradication?
Smallpox was eradicated by 1979. Its mode of transmission is lower than chickenpox, it has fewer rates f mutation and therefore made it possible to develop a vaccine for it.
3. Why wont monkeypox ever likely be eradicated, although it is closely related to small pox?
It is hard to eradicate monkeypox since it has a wild reservoir, and therefore treating all the monkeys harboring the virus is hard
4. What is a reservoir host? In what situations is hiding in a reservoir host easiest?
A reservoir host is an animal that harbors the virus in the wild. An infectious agent can easily hide in the reservoir host when the animal is not domesticated, and its lifecycle involves only the wild animal
5. In what organism is the Hendra virus thought to hide in? How was this determined?
The natural host for Hendra virus is the flying fox bats of the family Pteropus. This fact was discovered after horses that came in contact with the urine of these bas were infected.
6. What is spillover? Discuss how spillover of the Hendra virus may have occurred (to horses), and how environmental destruction may have played a role.
Spillover is the spread of the virus from the natural host to intermediate hosts. The destruction of urban flying fox roosts induced stress in the bats, leading to the excessive urination which ultimately came into contact with the horses
7. Why, according to the author, are viruses the most problematic of pathogens?
An infection with Hendra virus is very fatal because it involves the respiratory organs, and a patient may be forced to apply mechanical ventilation. Furthermore, there is no treatment of vaccine that has been developed against the virus.
8. How did Ebola spillover to humans in 1996?
As the human went into the forest to hunt for game meat, they came into contact with bat droppings. During the skinning of monkeys and other game animals, the blood and other body fluids transmitted the virus to man.
9. Besides humans, what other animal was affected by Ebola (and how many of them died)?
Other animals that are affected by the viral infection are the Columbus monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees. The 2002/2003 outbreak is estimated to have killed at least 90% of the infected animals, amounting to about 5000 non-human primates.
10. Why is Ebola so difficult to study?
Ebola virus has a short lived span in the human population and so the isolation and study of the virus is difficult. Furthermore, the virus undergoes rapid mutation, making a thorough study impossible. Lastly, the virus is not known to infect mice or guinea pigs which are used as laboratory animals.
11. List at least 3 other diseases mentioned in the article in which bats are thought to be the probable reservoir (besides Hendra).
Marburg, rabies, and coronaviruses
12. Damn, what is it about bats?. List three (3) characteristics of this organism that make it such a common and versatile reservoir.
Migration
Hibernation
Roosting
13. What chance and what risk does spillover offer a virus?
A spillover event allows the virus to find a new host and establish infection in other hosts. In the process, it may develop some characteristics to protect it from annihilation. However, the spillover to the other hosts provokes severe research to try and eradicate the virus completely.
14. List at least 3 ways that contact between humans and animal reservoirs occur? Once contact has occurred, what are 2 other important factors that can lead to widespread transmission of a virus?
Scratching by a flying reservoir, contact with the droppings from reservoirs, and ingestion of meat from an infected animal can lead to spread of the virus. Once the contact and infection have occurred, the new hosts can transmit the virus through body fluids like sweat and blood. Additionally, cough droplets can lead to his spread.
15. What is an anthropozoonotic infection? Of what potential consequence are they?
This is a zoonotic infection that is normally sustained in the wild by animals and that can be transmitted to human. These infections can be potentially fatal especially if there are no vaccines already developed against them.
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