Hunting for the Next Pandemic

Many of the major infectious diseases that plague humans- like cholera, small pox and AIDS- first evolved in animals. And at some point these diseases all made the leap from animals to people. Traditional medicine has approached the problem by searching f

Many of the major human infectious diseases – such as HIV, the plague and cholera – got their start as diseases in animals. Understanding how these microbes and viruses make the leap from animals to humans could give scientists a leg up in finding the next big pandemic before it hits. Nathan Wolfe, an epidemiologist from UCLA, talks to host Bruce Gellerman about hunting for viruses in the jungles of Cameroon.