Africa Faces A 63% Rise In Zoonotic Diseases, WHO

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Africa is currently facing the risk of increasing outbreaks that are being caused by zoonotic pathogens such as the monkeypox virus.

A WHO analysis states that there has been a 63 percent increase in the number of zoonotic outbreaks within the region in the current decade from 2012 to 2022 as compared to 2001-2011.

A zoonotic disease is any type or group of diseases that can be transmitted to humans by nonhuman vertebrate animals, such as mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.

During a media briefing on Thursday, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, stated that, “More than 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are caused by pathogens shared with wild or domestic animals. They (zoonotic) account for a substantial burden of disease, resulting in about a billion sick people and millions of deaths globally every year.”

The analysis had discovered that since 2001, 1,843 substantiated public health events were recorded in the African region – 30 per cent of which were zoonotic outbreaks, as animal-to-human diseases are known.

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Although the numbers have increased over the past two decades, 2019 and 2020 had seen a particular spike, with zoonotic pathogens accounting for half of all public health events.

Moreover, Ebola as well as similar fevers, which trigger blood loss from damaged vessels (haemorrhagic), had constituted a near 70 per cent of these outbreaks, including monkeypox, dengue fever, anthrax and plague.

Even though there has been an increase in monkeypox since April, as compared to the same period in 2021, the numbers are currently still lower than the 2020 peak, when the region recorded its highest-ever monthly cases.

Subsequently after a sudden drop in 2021, 203 confirmed monkeypox cases had been recorded in the region since the beginning of the year, as the zoonotic disease spreads worldwide into many countries where it has not been endemic.

Dr. Moeti also stated that, “Available data for 175 of the cases this year in Africa, indicate that just over half the patients when averaged out, were 17-year-old men. Africa cannot be allowed to become a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases.”