Call for more animal research

Researchers have published a blueprint for studying animal health following calls from the scientific community for more help in understanding how diseases jump to humans.

According to a study published in Nature in February, more than 60 per cent of human epidemics between 1940 and 2004 originated with animals.

The most famous example of this type of transmission was HIV/Aids to humans from SIV-1 in chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, polio, measles and respiratory diseases are believed to have been passed on to animals from humans.

In an article published in the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, Assistant Professor of environmental studies at Emory University Thomas Gillespie advises researchers show to gather and store animal specimens.

"That may give us a chance to see something abnormal before it becomes an epidemic," he added.

One of the major threats of a pandemic to humans is from bird flu, which the World Health Organization has rated as "very serious".

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