Only 13 diseases or infections transmitted from animals to humans like tuberculosis (TB) and Rift Valley fever, are responsible for around 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths per year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. In the least developed countries, 20 per cent of human sickness and death was due to zoonoses - diseases that had recently jumped species from animals to people - according to a new study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, Kenya, the Institute of Zoology in Britain, and the Hanoi School of Public Health in Vietnam. The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted that at least 61 per cent of all human diseases, and 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases, are zoonotic or caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus or other communicable disease agent picked up from an animal source.