BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (MAD COW DISEASE) Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, is a progressive, neurological disorder of cattle. It was first discovered in the United Kingdom in…

BOTULISM Among its more common names, botulism is also known as limberneck in birds and shaker foal syndrome in horses. Botulism is caused by the toxins (byproducts of bacterial growth)…

ZOONOTIC DISEASES Zoonoses (singular: zoonosis; adjective: zoonotic) are diseases transmitted among humans and other vertebrates. The key word here is among. Zoonotic diseases can be transmitted from nonhuman animals (henceforth…

INTRODUCTION When people think about diseases they can get from animals, probably one of the first diseases that comes to mind is rabies. Indeed, rabies is a serious disease that…

MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY At the beginning of each disease section, a scale of 1 to 4 plus marks (+ to ++++) indicates the morbidity and mortality for the disease. The…

ABOUT THE DISEASES In the next section of this book, you will be introduced to many of the known zoonotic diseases. The diseases are listed in alphabetical order by their…

PREVENTING ZOONOTIC DISEASES Except for smallpox vaccination, few tools for protecting people and animals from zoonotic diseases were available before the early 1900s. Methods such as thoroughly cooking meat, boiling…

HOSTS People are often accidental and dead-end hosts for zoonotic diseases. The definitive host of a pathogen is also the natural host of the pathogen. In the case of zoonotic…