Pandemic 'hotspots' located in study

by Rich Bowden - Feb 22 2008, 03:29

The next most likely occurrence of a major pandemic will probably be in an overcrowded region of the world where humans have contact with wildlife a study has revealed.

Researchers from four major institutions, the University of Georgia along with scientists from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Institute of Zoology (London) and Columbia University, have published a three-year investigation in the journal Nature which has issued a map of pandemic "hotspots" of the world where the team predict infectious diseases are more likely to occur.

The study says the emergence of new diseases have quadrupled in recent years with sixty percent of them described as zoonoses, diseases which have been transmitted from wildlife to human populations.

New,deadly zoonoses include AIDS which is believed to have been transmitted from chimpanzees; SARS which originated in China and Ebola virus, from three species of African fruit bat.

Some of the zoonoses, which originate from wildlife have ended up infecting humans through a domestic intermediary such as bird flu, where human infection occurs through poultry.

"We are crowding wildlife into ever-smaller areas, and human population is increasing," said co-author Marc Levy of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, affiliated to Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. "Where those two things meet, that is a recipe for something crossing over."

The extensive research carried out by the team has taken into account human population density, changes in population, latitude, rainfall and wildlife biodiversity as well as looking at historical data for the origin of infectious diseases.

"Our hotspots map show that the next new important zoonotic disease is likely to originate in the tropics, a region rich in wildlife species and under increasing pressure from people," said Peter Daszak, executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine at Wildlife Trust, New York.

"The problem is, most of our resources are focused on the richer countries in the North that can afford surveillance."

He called on monitoring networks to be set up in developing countries where disease is likely to originate to warn other countries before it is spread through infected people travelling around the globe.

"If we continue to ignore this important preventative measure, then human populations will continue to be at risk from pandemic diseases," he said.

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