Emerging Infectious Diseases On The Rise

By analyzing 335 incidents of previous disease emergence beginning in 1940, the study has determined that zoonoses - diseases that originate in animals - are the current and most important threat in causing new diseases to emerge. And most of these, including SARS and the Ebola virus, originated in wildlife. Antibiotic drug resistance has been cited as another culprit, leading to diseases such as extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB).

The scientists also found that more new diseases emerged in the 1980s than any other decade, "likely due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which led to a range of other new diseases in people," said Mark Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESN) at Columbia University.

But this team did not stop with determining the causes and origins of emerging infectious diseases; they took it a step further. To help predict and prevent future attacks, sophisticated computer models were used to help design a global map of emerging disease hotspots.

"This is a seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases," said Gittleman, dean of the Odum School of Ecology, who developed the approach used in analyzing the global database. "Our study has shown that bringing ecological sciences and public health together can advance the field in a dramatic way."//////////end of excerpt.////////The more we develop without the proper safeguards, the more at risk we place our own species.