[UPI] Researchers say they have developed a method to identify animal viruses that may pose a risk to humans.The study, published in the November issue of PLOS One, spotted several viruses known to pass from animal to human and that have the potential to spread between humans.
"When we get new pathogens that we look at as new human diseases, most of the time they come from pathogens that were previously circulating in animals," said John Drake, Distinguished Research Professor of Ecology and director of the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Georgia. "As ecologists, that makes us think that there must be something about the ways parasites and pathogens interact with their hosts or the environment that confers the propensity to this process."
The purpose of the study was to identify diseases that could cause potential human epidemics.