No abstract

A transdisciplinary project was undertaken by veterinarians and historians to investigate various aspects of potential zoonotic diseases that were classified, or have been seriously considered as reportable diseases in Switzerland (bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE], brucellosis, neosporosis, tuberculosis). Above all we were interested in the scientific and societal background which is necessary to declare an infectious disease being a reportable disease which needs to be eradicated. Results of this study have shown that the time interval between the first recognition of an infectious disease and the implementation of national control measures can vary greatly. In the post modern information based society, the interval between recognition of a new emerging disease and its eradication program becomes much shorter when the disease in question has a zoonotic potential. The historic correlation is not used as a history of progress. It is presented to explain the different recognition of risk and the broad context of measurements in society to fight against zoonosis.