By Helen Briggs BBC News
4 hours ago
Scientists say they have
developed a better way to predict how animal diseases can spill over into
humans.
Their model for Lassa fever,
which is spread by rats, predicts that there will be twice as many human cases
of the disease in Africa by 2070.
The method can be applied to other
disease threats such as Ebola and Zika, they say.
Like the Ebola virus, the Lassa
virus causes haemorrhagic fever and can be fatal.
Lassa fever virus currently
affects between 100,000 and one million people a year in western sub-Saharan
Africa.
A rat found in parts of the
continent can pass the virus to people.
Scientists led by Prof Kate Jones
of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research at UCL looked at about
400 known outbreaks of Lassa fever between 1967 and 2012.
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