In Africa, 63% jump in diseases spread from animals to people seen in last decade.

The analysis finds that between 2001-2022 there were 1843 substantiated public health events recorded in the WHO African region. Thirty percent of these events were zoonotic disease outbreaks. While these numbers have increased over the past two decades, there was a particular spike in 2019 and 2020 when zoonotic pathogens represented around 50% of public health events. Ebola Virus Disease and other viral hemorrhagic fevers constitute nearly 70% of these outbreaks; with dengue fever, anthrax, plague, monkeypox and a range of other diseases making up the remaining 30%.

Ebola Virus Disease and other viral hemorrhagic fevers constitute nearly 70% of these outbreaks; with dengue fever, anthrax, plague, monkeypox and a range of other diseases making up the remaining 30%.

The latest data on monkeypox finds a significant increase in cases since April 2022, compared to the same period in 2021. The increase is mainly observed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and could partly be attributed to enhanced monkeypox surveillance and laboratory testing capacity in the countries, though detailed investigations are underway. However, this upward trend is still lower than in 2020 when the region reported its highest monthly cases of monkeypox. Overall, cases of monkeypox have been rising since 2017, except in 2021 where there was a sudden drop. From 1 January to 8 July 2022 there have been 2087 cumulative monkeypox cases, of which only 203 were confirmed. The overall case fatality rate for the 203 confirmed cases is 2.4%. Of the 175 confirmed cases for which there is case-specific data, 53% were male and the median age was 17 years.

The increase in zoonotic cases may be due to several reasons. Africa has the world's fastest-growing population and there is a growing demand for food derived from animals including meat, poultry, eggs, and milk. The population growth is also leading to rising urbanization and encroachment on the habitats of wildlife. Road, rail, boat and air links are also improving across Africa increasing the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks spreading from remote areas where there are few inhabitants to large urban areas. As we have seen with the West African Ebola outbreaks, there can be a devastating number of deaths and cases, when zoonotic diseases arrive in cities.

Infections originating in animals and then jumping to humans have been happening for centuries, but the risk of mass infections and deaths had been...