Globalization of Human Infectious Disease

Abstract

Globalization has facilitated the spread of numerous infectious agents to all corners of the planet. Analysis of the Global Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Network (GIDEON) database quantitatively illustrates that the globalization of human infectious agents depends significantly on the range of hosts used. Infectious agents specific to humans are broadly and uniformly distributed, whereas zoonotic infectious agents are far more localized in their geographical distribution. Moreover, these patterns vary depending on transmission mode and infectious agent taxonomy. This dichotomy is unlikely to persist if certain aspects of globalization (for example, exotic species introductions) continue unabated. This raises a serious concern for public health and leaves nations with the task of determining the infectious agents that have the greatest potential to establish within their borders. At the advent of a century characterized by an apparent increase in emerging infectious diseases, these results have critical implications for public-health policy and future research pathways of infectious disease ecology.

Parasite stress promotes homicide and child maltreatment

“…Parasite stress varies consistently and strongly with climate and its surrogate, latitude. Hot and wet areas or low latitudes consistently have the highest parasite stress [4,5,[24][25][26][27].…”

Global biogeographic regions in a human‐dominated world: the case of human diseases

“…However, human associated species-such as pests, domesticates, and pathogens-tend to be excluded from consideration when discerning biogeographic regions. These human associates are often expected to be ubiquitous and, on average, do indeed have larger geographic ranges than most other species (Dunn and Romdal 2005, Olden et al 2006, Smith et al 2007). Even relatively large human associates, such as rats and house flies, spread around the world with early western colonization (West 1951, He et al 2009), just as West Nile virus and avian influenza H5N1 more recently spread (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2003, Spielman et al 2004, Fauci 2005, Olsen et al 2006).…”

“…GIDEON defines vectors as the agent in which a pathogen is transmitted from one host to another. The GIDEON disease data are described in detail in Smith et al (2007). They are not complete (diseases, particularly rare ones, can be missed), but they are, to our knowledge, the most complete disease data available.…”

Global Pathogen Distributions: A Win–Win for Disease Ecology and Biogeography

“…We all know the story of Cortez's arrival in the New World and subsequent introduction of novel pathogens, like smallpox, which decimated the Amerindians (McNeill, 1989). Many pathogens endemic to specific regions only 500 years ago were broadly distributed around the world by the 20th century (Smith et al, 2007). With the rise of public health initiatives and preventative medicine, many of these diseases were eradicated or brought under control by the mid1900s.…”

“…Whereas hundreds of publications have documented Rapoport's Rule for macro-organisms, only a few have considered whether these latitudinal gradient patterns hold for human pathogens (Guernier et al, 2004;Jones et al, 2008;Guernier and Guegan, 2009). Biotic homogenization, the process by which species invasions and extinctions increase the taxonomic, genetic, or functional similarity of disparate communities over a specified time interval, is apparent in plant and animal assemblages worldwide, but only recently documented for human pathogens (Smith et al, 2007;Olden, 2008). While Island Biogeography Theory has been invoked hundreds of times to predict species richness in insular communities, it has not been fully employed to explain disease occurrence on the world's island nations (MacArthur and Wilson, 1967;Cliff and Haggett, 1995).…”