Encephalitis

Complications from measles such as pneumonia or encephalitis, a swelling of the brain, can be fatal or lead to permanent disability. That’s why doctors urge parents to get their children vaccinated.

Causes of epilepsy include injury around the time of birth, brain infections from illnesses such meningitis or encephalitis and stroke.

It's not a new problem. The AIDS virus, HIV, is now known to have originated from a similar virus in African chimpanzees. An estimated 30-million people have died of AIDS since the early 1980s. Other human diseases with animal origins include SARS, Ebola hemorrhagic fever and West Nile encephalitis.