The world has been witnessing a series of virus spillovers from wild species to humans. The spate of infectious diseases in recent decades – Chikungunya, Ebola, yellow fever, swine flu, bird flu, SARS, Nipah, Zika – all can be traced to biodiversity loss and the subsequent close interactions between wild species and human beings. Data reveals that infectious diseases have, in fact, tripled every decade since the 1980s, with nearly 60% of these originating in wild animals.
