Global Health News

Date: November 4, 2014
Time: 7:30-9:00pm
Location: Ondaatje Hall, McCain Building, Dalhousie University

he Ebola outbreak in West Africa has made for lurid,
saddening headlines this year, and reports from the
region have grown only more alarming in recent months.
Last year, evoking quieter but no less serious concern,
it was the MERS virus coming out of Saudi Arabia. Before
that, we heard about bird flu and West Nile and Hanta and
SARS and a steady drumbeat of scary new viruses, emerging
suddenly to cause misery, death, and in some cases
epidemics of global concern.

But emerging-from where? These new viruses share one
thing in common: They are all zoonoses, meaning animal
infections that sometimes spill over into humans. In
which animals do they live their secret lives? Why do
they sometimes cross into humans? And what are the
chances that the next one, or the one after, will cause a
global pandemic?

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