Infectious diseases spreading fast
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Researchers analyzed 335 episodes of emerging diseases from 1940 to 2004; then converted the results into maps correlated with human population density, population changes, latitude, rainfall and wildlife biodiversity.
The study found new disease hot spots are areas in sub-Saharan Africa, India and China; outbreaks occured on a smaller scale in Europe, and North and South America. It also says that conservation of biodiversity may be an important means of preventing new diseases.Following are the main findings of the study published in the February 21 issue of Nature:
Disease emergences have quadrupled over the past 50 years; some 60 per cent of the diseases travelled from animals to humans (called zoonoses) and majority of those came from wild creatures; expansion of humans into shrinking pockets of biodiversity and resulting contacts with wildlife are the reasons Humans have evolved no resistance to zoonoses, so the diseases can be lethal About 20 per cent of known emergences are multidrug-resistant strains of previously known pathogens More diseases emerged in the 1980s
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