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Ecology Drives The Worldwide Distribution Of Human Diseases
June 09, 2004Mounting evidence suggests that ecological and climatic conditions influence the emergence, spread, and recurrence of infectious diseases. Global climate change is likely to aggravate climate-sensitive diseases in unpredictable ways.
Increasingly, public health programs aimed at preventing and controlling disease outbreaks are considering aspects of the ecology of infectious diseases--how hosts, vectors, and parasites interact with each other and their environment. The hope is that by understanding how ecological factors impact the global distribution of parasitic and infectious diseases, public health officials can predict and contain future outbreaks.
Even though parasitic and infectious organisms account for a major fraction of the biological diversity on the planet, few studies have analyzed the factors affecting the spatial distribution of these organisms or attempted to quantify their contribution to biodiversity. In this issue, Vanina Guernier, Michael Hochberg, and Jean-Francois Guegan address the influence of ecological factors on the biological diversity and distribution of parasitic and infectious diseases. After compiling epidemiological data on 332 different human pathogens across 224 countries, Guernier et al. used sophisticated statistical modeling methods to identify and characterize the influence of a number of potential contributing factors on species richness. They found that climatic factors are the most important determinant of the global distribution of human pathogens.
The finding has important implications for predicting and managing future infectious disease outbreaks. These results counter the conventional assumption that socioeconomic conditions are the most important factor in controlling disease, indicating that global climate change could have far more significant effects on global patterns of disease, with diseases once relegated to the tropics migrating to temperate zones, for example. Identifying the links between ecology and disease, however, could lay the foundation for effective preventive strategies.
Public Library Of Science
Infectious Diseases News and Current Infectious Diseases Events RSSNIAID describes challenges, prospects for an HIV vaccine
Events of the past year in HIV vaccine research have led some to question whether an effective HIV vaccine will ever be developed. In the August 28 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, examine the extraordinarily challenging properties of the virus that have made a vaccine elusive and outline the scientific questions that, if answered, could lead to an effective HIV vaccine.
Stick with simple antibiotics for pneumonia to avoid super bugs, says researcher
Australian hospitals should avoid prescribing expensive broad-spectrum antibiotics for pneumonia to avoid the development of more drug-resistant super bugs, according to a University of Melbourne study.
Researchers uncover molecule that keeps pathogens like salmonella in check
Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a potential new way to stop the bacteria that cause gastroenteritis, tularemia and severe diarrhea from making people sick.
China sees spike in rabies cases
A new Chinese study has reported a dramatic spike in rabies infections. The research, published today in the open access journal BMC Infectious Diseases, shows that in some provinces of China the number of human rabies cases has jumped dramatically since the new millennium.
Bacterial pneumonia caused most deaths in 1918 influenza pandemic
The majority of deaths during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 were not caused by the influenza virus acting alone, report researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers uncover attack mechanism of illness-inducing bacterium found in shellfish
An infectious ocean-dwelling bacterium found in oysters and other shellfish kills its host's cells by causing them to burst, providing the invader with a nutrient-rich meal, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
Leishmaniasis parasites evade death by exploiting the immune response to sand fly bites
Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease characterized by painful skin ulcers, occurs when the parasite Leishmania major, or a related species, is transmitted to a mammalian host by the bite of an infected sand fly.
How flesh-eating bacteria attack the body's immune system
"Flesh-eating" or "Strep" bacteria are able to survive and spread in the body by degrading a key immune defense molecule, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
NIH scientists find a novel mechanism that controls the development of autoimmunity
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found a mechanism in the immune systems of mice that can lead to the development of autoimmune disease when turned off.
Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis found in California
In the first statewide study of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) in the United States, California officials have identified 18 cases of the dangerous and difficult-to-treat disease between 1993 and 2006, and 77 cases that were one step away from XDR TB. The study appears in the August 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.
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