Zoonoses in the world: current and future trends.

Zoonoses still represent significant health problems in many developed and developing countries. Whereas rabies, brucellosis, and echinococcosis will remain the major zoonotic diseases to be tackled in developing countries for the next 20 years, it is very likely that many developed countries will have eliminated these diseases by then. As observed repeatedly in the past few years, new zoonoses are, however, expected to emerge in the near future. Due to ever-increasing animal and human movements these new agents, whether originating from the southern or northern hemisphere, will most probably spread throughout the globe very quickly. It is very probable, in view of the foreseeable changes in the developed (e.g. population aging) and developing world (e.g. population growth, urbanization) or both (e.g. AIDS pandemic, environmental changes), that this trend will continue and even intensify.