In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of the top emerging diseases that are “likely to cause severe outbreaks in the near future.” It’s no coincidence that all the diseases on the list are zoonotic diseases caused by RNA viruses, which turn animals—mostly wild ones—into reservoirs to hide in and subsequently jump from animals to humans.
Tropical forests are home to a much higher number of species than other kinds of forest, which means their inhabitants can carry more kinds of disease-causing microbes than wild animals in other parts of the world. Bushmeat in Africa has been shown to be the source of scourges such as HIV and, more recently, the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which sent a chill down the spines of epidemic experts.