People, rainfall, biodiversity breed new diseases

An international team of scientists has identified 335 cases of emerging diseases that erupted between 1940 and 2004, with almost three out of four spurring disease in humans after spreading from animals. And they're calling for the creation of an early warning system to alert medical officials before new diseases spread from the world's "hot spots" in tropical regions. High rainfall, biodiversity and rapidly growing populations are considered breeding grounds for new outbreaks of diseases like SARS and Ebola. The 1980s saw the greatest growth in outbreaks of any of the decades studies, probably due to the emergence of HIV. Bacteria and viruses cause most outbreaks, with one in five triggered by antibiotic resistant microbes.

- read the article in The Guardian

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