Given the global scorecard of morbidity and mortality caused by old-fashioned infectious diseases—such as cholera, typhoid, TB, rotavirus diarrhea, malaria (excepting Plasmodium knowlesi), not to mention chronic illnesses such as cancer and heart disease—why divert attention to these boutique infections, these anomalies, that spill out of bats or monkeys or who knows where to claim a few dozen or a few hundred people now and then?
