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UnDisciplined: what happens when humans pass diseases back to animals?

Woman and dog
GaiBru Photo/GaiBru Photo - stock.adobe.com
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Woman and dog

We don't know how COVID-19 got started, but the prevailing theory among global scientists is that it was passed from bats through another animal to humans. And this is how we've come to expect viruses often make their way into our lives. But there's another part of this story. We often give viruses back to animals. And this week, we're going to be talking about what happens after that happens.

Anna Fagre is the lead author of recent study on how human to wildlife virus transmission works, and what we know about it, and importantly, what we don't. Anna Fagre is an affiliate at the Colorado State University Center for vector borne infectious diseases.

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Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something occurred to him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be so brutally depressing all the time. These days, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects with his work on UnDisciplined — Utah Public Radio's weekly program on science and discovery.