Abstract
Veterinarians have accepted their roles in zoonosis management and have taken to Rudolph Virchow's concept of comparative medicine perhaps more readily than have many of Virchow's fellow physicians. However, recent outbreaks of Nipah virus in Malaysia, spongiform encephalophathy in Europe, and West Nile fever virus in the USA have helped to focus the attention of physicians and other public health professionals on infectious diseases common to animals and humans and on the role of veterinarians in public health matters. Appropriately, the American Society for Microbiology has followed its series of volumes on emerging infectious diseases of humans with Emerging Diseases of Animals. The stated aim of the book is to take information from the veterinary community and present it to infectious-disease specialists in human health.
The chapter on agroterrorism is timely, thoughtful, and enlightening. It should be required reading for veterinarians and others involved in the regulation of animal agriculture. The chapter on xenotransplantation, though largely conjectural, is scientifically based, well referenced, and provides a nice review of some important porcine viruses, in particular. The remaining chapters present individual animal diseases, including Asian fruit bat viruses, avian influenza, spongiform encephalopathies, brucellosis, leptospirosis, enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, multiresistant Salmonella, bartonellosis, plague, and tuberculosis. These chapters generally provide the background, epidemiology, pathogenesis, transmission, and control of each disease, plus additional information appropriate to each topic. Taken together, these chapters illustrate how challenging emerging animal diseases can be to public health professionals. The chapters are well referenced and indexed, but several of the figures are of poor quality. Unfortunately, the emergence of West Nile virus in the USA is not covered, presumably because the book was completed before documentation of the West Nile virus outbreak.
Emerging Diseases of Animals should serve as a valuable reference for veterinary pathologists and other professionals with interests in infectious diseases. It should also be appropriate reading for veterinary students and others becoming immersed in the many complexities of the diagnosis and control of infectious diseases affecting animals and humans.