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13 Bizarre Killer Diseases Transmitted by Animals to Humans |
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by nobert soloria bermosa, May 14, 2008 |
Some animals are really deadly, transmitting lethal diseases to humans and killing millions. |
Leishmaniasis
This disease is similar to malaria in that the disease organisms are protozoa transmitted to humans by an insect bite, but the insect in this case is the sandfly. The most lethal kind with a mortality rate of 95% is “kalazar,” a term derived from Hindi language meaning “black disease.”
Trypanosomiasis 
This is a group of diseases caused by similar kinds of protozoa. The diseases include two kinds of African sleeping disease and chagas disease affecting about 10 million people. Sleeping sickness is transmitted by tsetse fly. Chagas disease is transmitted by the insect known as assassin bug or kissing bug. It also affects other animals such as donkey, cattle, horses and dogs.
Bubonic Plague 
Three great epidemics of bubonic plague have been recorded, including “Black Death” in the 14th century killing 50 million people. This disease is carried by rodents, including squirrel, rats, rabbits.
Malaria 
One of the most common diseases in the world, the disease is carried by anopheles mosquitoes. It is estimated that at least one million children die each year because of malaria.
Anthrax 
This is an acute infectious disease caused by a bacteria and, depending on the form, can be highly lethal. Anthrax is a serious disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which affects cattle, sheep, and goat usually causing death. People working with sick animals or their products can suffer sores, swelling, fever, pneumonia, blood poisoning and death.
Onchocerciasis 
This is a disease transmitted by a species of blackfly that causes blindness. This is not a deadly or killer disease but had caused millions of cases of blindness.
Avian Flu or Bird's Flu 
A contagious disease caused by viruses that normally infect birds and transmitted to humans. Since 1997, thousands of confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza viruses have been reported.
Leptospirosis 
An infectious disease caused by a particular type of bacteria called a spirochete transmitted by rats as well as by skunks, opossums, raccoons, foxes, and other vermin. Leptospirosis occurs worldwide but is most commonly acquired in the tropics.
Rabies 
An acute, infectious, often fatal viral disease of most warm-blooded animals, especially wolves, cats, and dogs, that attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted by the bite of infected animals. Thousands have died due to this disease.
Loiasis 
This is a kind of disease transmitted from monkey to human and vice versa by a biting fly.
Yellow Fever 
Sometimes produces similar symptoms to those of malaria. It is a virus disease carried by aedes mosquito. Yellow fever also can be harbored by other animals.
Tularemia 
This disease is also called rabbit fever. It is transmitted from animals to humans who come in contact with the animal tissues and through the bites of ticks or fleas.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever 
This is the name of a tick borne. This disease is also called tick fever. The name is misleading because humans are most likely to get infected in regions far from the Rocky Mountains. It is caused by a rickettsial organism transmitted by a tick bite. Wild rodents are a reservoir of the infected ticks that carry the disease.
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