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Scientists have reported the number of potentially dangerous viruses
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Experts are confident that at present there are more than three hundred thousand unknown viruses in nature, which could subsequently prove dangerous to human health and life.
American scientists have published a statement that a large number of viruses common in the animal world may, after some time, change and become a threat to the human body. Statistics report that more than seventy percent of known viral diseases (for example, Ebola fever, atypical pneumonia, influenza, African fever) are zoonoses. Zoonotic infections or zoonoses are infectious diseases whose pathogens are parasites only in certain animal species. Accordingly, for a person, the source of a dangerous disease can be an animal in whose body there is a parasitic organism. It is noteworthy that zoonotic infections are almost never transmitted from person to person; for the normal circulation of a viral disease in the chain, animal organisms are needed.
For several years, a group of researchers from the United States and Western Europe have been studying the viral potential of the animal world. Many experts are confident that the number of viruses unknown to modern medicine is constantly increasing and over time they may become dangerous for the lives of the planet's inhabitants. Employees of twenty research centers studied already known viral diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans. During the study, statistical data were processed, as well as the results of the latest field experiments.
The head of the study reported that according to statistics, several acute cases of pandemic have been registered over the past few decades. A pandemic is a mass epidemic that has become widespread - the spread of a dangerous infectious disease across an entire country or continent. Epidemiologists believe that the main sources of mass infectious diseases are both wild and domestic animals. Some of the most famous viruses, the pathogens of which parasitized animals, are the bird flu virus, the SARS virus, which is also called the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus, and HIV.
Analysts have calculated that about 6-7 billion US dollars will be needed to study viruses that may eventually become dangerous to the human body. According to preliminary estimates, there are more than three hundred thousand viruses in the animal world that are dangerous to humans and can cause mass diseases. In order to prevent possible epidemics of new infectious diseases, researchers plan to study potentially dangerous viruses, develop possible vaccines and provide adequate protection for those people who will encounter animal carriers. Scientists are confident that only a detailed study of the possible danger will help prevent mass epidemics.
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