Contact with monkeys and apes puts populations at risk

Animal diseases that infect humans are a major threat to human health, and diseases often spillover to humans from nonhuman primates. In 2018 the World Health Organization added "Disease X" – an unknown pathogen of zoonotic origin that can infect human beings – to its list of diseases most in need of research and development. Now, researchers, including Dr Tamara Giles-Vernick of the Institut Pasteur, have carried out an extensive social sciences evaluation of how populations in Cameroon interact with nonhuman primates, pointing toward behaviors that could put people at risk of infection with new diseases. Their paper appeared in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

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