Why experts fear a disease that leaps from animals to humans could devastate mankind in the next five years
- Warning comes after man died from a Sars-like virus that had previously only been seen in bats
- Earlier this month a man from Glasgow died from a tick-borne disease that is widespread in domestic and wild animals in Africa and Asia
One leading British virologist, Professor John Oxford at Queen Mary Hospital, University of London, and a world authority on epidemics, warns that we must expect an animal-originated pandemic to hit the world within the next five years, with potentially cataclysmic effects on the human race.
Such a contagion, he believes, will be a new strain of super-flu, a highly infectious virus that may originate in some far-flung backwater of Asia or Africa, and be contracted by one person from a wild animal or domestic beast, such as a chicken or pig.
[I looked up the Profile of Professor John Oxford: http://ec.europa.eu/research/profiles/index_en.cfm?p=1_oxford]
Full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217774/The-Armageddon-virus-Why-experts-fear-disease-leaps-animals-humans-devastate-mankind-years.html?openGraphAuthor=%2Fhome%2Fsearch.html%3Fs%3D%26authornamef%3DJohn%2BNaish
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