Wise Ecology May Reduce Spread of Infectious Disease
For the first time ever, an international team of researchers has mapped out the areas around the world where infectious diseases, passed from animals to humans, have originated. Using data that dates back to the early 1940s, the study concludes that diseases that originate in animals, called zoonoses, are the biggest threat to humans today.
Infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola, West Nile virus, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) all originated in animals and were spread to humans, who then spread them around the world. These diseases emerged from areas rich with wildlife but which are suffering from the rise in the human population. Encroachment on animals’ natural habitats is thought to be one important avenue of contagion.
There were 335 individual incidents of disease emergence studied, with their points of origin mapped to isolate “hotspots” of infection. This ground-breaking procedure allowed scientists to not only map the spread of the diseases but they have also determined that the next likely source of new and emerging diseases is the Tropics, where animal life still flourishes but is threatened by the spread of the human population.
Adding further alarm to the threat of these and other emerging infectious diseases is the growing number of drug-resistant pathogens evolving.
Researchers also stress that billions of dollars are being spent in affluent areas of the North to quell what has so far been considered random epidemics. Evidence from the mapping project indicates the entire global community will be safer if more effort was made establishing preventive measures where humans and wildlife are living in close proximity.
Findings from this study were recently published in Nature, considered one of the leading journals in the scientific community. The research team was led by John Gittleman and colleagues from the University of Georgia, and included researchers from Columbia University, the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and the London Institute of Zoology.
Source: University of Georgia
Apparent inconsistancy in logic.
If the money and therefore the antibiotics are being used in the north, then how is it that the resistances are developing in the south?
While I see the wisdom of dealing with the issue at the source, I wonder what form that will take.
Simply bringing modern treatment of outbreaks to the source will highten the issue of adaptive resistance, will it not?
What is left:
Not disturbing the environment, too late global warming is doing that.
Withdrawing human / animal contact. How do you propose to do that?
Quarrantine of local population , Quarrantine of wildlife not practicable.
Strategic elimination of local human and wildlife populations. Ethical problem.
Other? Please specify.
Human/animal contact can be reduced by stopping urban/suburban sprawl. If we were to build UP (high rises for apartments, offices, etc) instead of outward, the entire population could be condensed into a rather small area which would limit the amount of interaction between humans and animals. While this isn’t going to help in undeveloped and developing nations, it will help in developed nations.
Urban sprawl is a component of many problems in civilized life.