Over nine per cent of the world's land area is at "high" or "very high" risk of a zoonotic outbreak -- triggered when an infection spreads from an animal to a human or vice versa, such as the Covid pandemic, according to a study.

Findings published in the journal Science Advances also estimate 3 per cent of the global population to be living in extremely risky areas, and about a fifth in medium-risk areas.

Researchers, including those from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) Scientific Development Programmes Unit in Italy, analysed location-specific information from the 'Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network' dataset and the World Health Organization's (WHO) list of diseases prioritised according to their potential for causing an epidemic or a pandemic.