The Lancet  
Dec 01, 2012  Volume 380  Number 9857  p1881 – 1966
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

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Anatomy of a pandemic
Peter Daszak
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For millennia, human beings have been plagued by pathogens originating in other animal species. Pathogens that are now endemic in human beings, such as measles and smallpox, evolved from wildlife microbes that exploited our successful development for their own global spread.1 Zoonotic diseases have had a substantial effect on our social, cultural, and economic development. When these diseases first began to emerge is unknown,2 but causal factors include large-scale ecological and demographic changes, such as the domestication of livestock3 and the formation of dense human populations around 10 000 years ago.

Emerging infectious diseases: the role of social sciences
Craig R Janes, Kitty K Corbett, James H Jones, James Trostle
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Popular and scientific representations of research into emerging infectious disease often focus on the pathogen itself—its molecular machinery, processes of reassortment and mutation, and how these factors indicate risk for human-to-human transmission. However, social and ecological processes that facilitate infection also deserve close attention, as emphasised in the Lancet Series on zoonoses.1–3 Present models of pathogen emergence and spread do not identify underlying drivers with sufficient clarity to allow effective prevention of disease.

Series – Zoonoses
Ecology of zoonoses: natural and unnatural histories
William B Karesh, Andy Dobson, James O Lloyd-Smith, Juan Lubroth, Matthew A Dixon, Malcolm Bennett, Stephen Aldrich, Todd Harrington, Pierre Formenty, Elizabeth H Loh, Catherine C Machalaba, Mathew Jason Thomas, David L Heymann
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More than 60% of human infectious diseases are caused by pathogens shared with wild or domestic animals. Zoonotic disease organisms include those that are endemic in human populations or enzootic in animal populations with frequent cross-species transmission to people. Some of these diseases have only emerged recently. Together, these organisms are responsible for a substantial burden of disease, with endemic and enzootic zoonoses causing about a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year.

Drivers, dynamics, and control of emerging vector-borne zoonotic diseases
A Marm Kilpatrick, Sarah E Randolph
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Emerging vector-borne diseases are an important issue in global health. Many vector-borne pathogens have appeared in new regions in the past two decades, while many endemic diseases have increased in incidence. Although introductions and emergence of endemic pathogens are often considered to be distinct processes, many endemic pathogens are actually spreading at a local scale coincident with habitat change. We draw attention to key differences between dynamics and disease burden that result from increased pathogen transmission after habitat change and after introduction into new regions.

Prediction and prevention of the next pandemic zoonosis
Stephen S Morse, Jonna AK Mazet, Mark Woolhouse, Colin R Parrish, Dennis Carroll, William B Karesh, Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio, W Ian Lipkin, Peter Daszak
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Most pandemics—eg, HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, pandemic influenza—originate in animals, are caused by viruses, and are driven to emerge by ecological, behavioural, or socioeconomic changes. Despite their substantial effects on global public health and growing understanding of the process by which they emerge, no pandemic has been predicted before infecting human beings. We review what is known about the pathogens that emerge, the hosts that they originate in, and the factors that drive their emergence.