scholarly journals Toward a transdisciplinary understanding and a global control of emerging infectious diseases

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 903-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Gonzalez ◽  
Gérard Lambert ◽  
Anaïs Legand ◽  
Patrice Debré

The Franceville International Centre for Medical Research (CIRMF) organized a first international symposium on infectious diseases, environments, and biodiversity. Over 200 international experts gathered in Gabon to forecast and work to prevent the emergence of infectious diseases. This symposium aimed to strengthen the regional and international fight against the emergence of infectious diseases with high-level scientific debates. Toward this goal, it brought together experts in human and animal health, the environment, and ecology, including biologists, climatologists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, public health professionals, and human and social sciences specialists. National, regional and international participants were present to debate on the challenges related to the emergence of infectious diseases and on the responses to be implemented. The symposium was very successful, and plans for a second symposium of this kind to be held in the near future in another high-biodiversity area are already underway.

The Lancet ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 380 (9857) ◽  
pp. 1884-1886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig R Janes ◽  
Kitty K Corbett ◽  
James H Jones ◽  
James Trostle

Author(s):  
Yunhwan Kim ◽  
Hohyung Ryu ◽  
Sunmi Lee

Super-spreading events have been observed in the transmission dynamics of many infectious diseases. The 2015 MERS-CoV outbreak in the Republic of Korea has also shown super-spreading events with a significantly high level of heterogeneity in generating secondary cases. It becomes critical to understand the mechanism for this high level of heterogeneity to develop effective intervention strategies and preventive plans for future emerging infectious diseases. In this regard, agent-based modeling is a useful tool for incorporating individual heterogeneity into the epidemic model. In the present work, a stochastic agent-based framework is developed in order to understand the underlying mechanism of heterogeneity. Clinical (i.e., an infectivity level) and social or environmental (i.e., a contact level) heterogeneity are modeled. These factors are incorporated in the transmission rate functions under assumptions that super-spreaders have stronger transmission and/or higher links. Our agent-based model has employed real MERS-CoV epidemic features based on the 2015 MERS-CoV epidemiological data. Monte Carlo simulations are carried out under various epidemic scenarios. Our findings highlight the roles of super-spreaders in a high level of heterogeneity, underscoring that the number of contacts combined with a higher level of infectivity are the most critical factors for substantial heterogeneity in generating secondary cases of the 2015 MERS-CoV transmission.


Author(s):  
Michael Xiaoliang Tong ◽  
Alana Hansen ◽  
Scott Hanson-Easey ◽  
Jianjun Xiang ◽  
Scott Cameron ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundChina’s capacity to control and prevent emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases is critical to the nation’s population health. This study aimed to explore the capacity of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs) in China to deal with infectious diseases now and in the future.MethodsA survey was conducted in 2015 among 973 public health professionals at CDCs in Beijing and four provinces, to assess their capacity to deal with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.ResultsAlthough most professionals were confident with the current capacity of CDCs to cope with outbreaks, nearly all indicated more funding was required to meet future challenges. Responses indicated that Yunnan Province faced more challenges than Anhui, Henan and Liaoning Provinces in being completely prepared and able to deal with outbreaks. Participants aged 20–39 years were more likely than those aged 40 and over to believe strategies such as interdisciplinary and international collaborations for disease surveillance and control, would assist capacity building.ConclusionThe capacity of China’s CDCs to deal with infectious diseases was excellent. However, findings suggest it is imperative to increase the number of skilled CDC staff, financial support, and strengthen county level staff training and health education programs.


2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
John MacKenzie ◽  
Martyn Jeggo

Global health security has become a major concern, particularly the threats to human and animal health from the emergence and re-emergence of epidemic-prone infectious diseases, as well as the significant and growing impact of these outbreaks on national and international economies. It has long been known that many of these diseases can cross the species barrier between humans, wildlife and domestic animals, and indeed over 70% of novel emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, that is, have their origins in animal reservoirs. There have been many recent examples of this trend, the most dramatic being recently the SARS epidemic ? the first major threat to global health from a novel zoonotic disease in the new Millennium. Other recent examples include the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic; the spread of Nipah virus into Bangladesh and India; and perhaps the most important of all, the ongoing concerns of a highly virulent influenza pandemic due to avian influenza virus (H5N1).


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (S8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Castagno ◽  
Simone Pernice ◽  
Gianni Ghetti ◽  
Massimiliano Povero ◽  
Lorenzo Pradelli ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as Zika, SARS, ncovid19 and Pertussis, pose a compelling challenge for epidemiologists due to their significant impact on global public health. In this context, computational models and computer simulations are one of the available research tools that epidemiologists can exploit to better understand the spreading characteristics of these diseases and to decide on vaccination policies, human interaction controls, and other social measures to counter, mitigate or simply delay the spread of the infectious diseases. Nevertheless, the construction of mathematical models for these diseases and their solutions remain a challenging tasks due to the fact that little effort has been devoted to the definition of a general framework easily accessible even by researchers without advanced modelling and mathematical skills. Results In this paper we describe a new general modeling framework to study epidemiological systems, whose novelties and strengths are: (1) the use of a graphical formalism to simplify the model creation phase; (2) the implementation of an R package providing a friendly interface to access the analysis techniques implemented in the framework; (3) a high level of portability and reproducibility granted by the containerization of all analysis techniques implemented in the framework; (4) a well-defined schema and related infrastructure to allow users to easily integrate their own analysis workflow in the framework. Then, the effectiveness of this framework is showed through a case of study in which we investigate the pertussis epidemiology in Italy. Conclusions We propose a new general modeling framework for the analysis of epidemiological systems, which exploits Petri Net graphical formalism, R environment, and Docker containerization to derive a tool easily accessible by any researcher even without advanced mathematical and computational skills. Moreover, the framework was implemented following the guidelines defined by Reproducible Bioinformatics Project so it guarantees reproducible analysis and makes simple the developed of new user-defined workflows.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Els N. T. Meeusen ◽  
John Walker ◽  
Andrew Peters ◽  
Paul-Pierre Pastoret ◽  
Gregers Jungersen

SUMMARY The major goals of veterinary vaccines are to improve the health and welfare of companion animals, increase production of livestock in a cost-effective manner, and prevent animal-to-human transmission from both domestic animals and wildlife. These diverse aims have led to different approaches to the development of veterinary vaccines from crude but effective whole-pathogen preparations to molecularly defined subunit vaccines, genetically engineered organisms or chimeras, vectored antigen formulations, and naked DNA injections. The final successful outcome of vaccine research and development is the generation of a product that will be available in the marketplace or that will be used in the field to achieve desired outcomes. As detailed in this review, successful veterinary vaccines have been produced against viral, bacterial, protozoal, and multicellular pathogens, which in many ways have led the field in the application and adaptation of novel technologies. These veterinary vaccines have had, and continue to have, a major impact not only on animal health and production but also on human health through increasing safe food supplies and preventing animal-to-human transmission of infectious diseases. The continued interaction between animals and human researchers and health professionals will be of major importance for adapting new technologies, providing animal models of disease, and confronting new and emerging infectious diseases.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Glenn A Marsh

Emerging infectious diseases pose a significant threat to human and animal health. Increasingly, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are of zoonotic origin and are derived from wildlife. Bats have been identified as an important reservoir of zoonotic viruses belonging to a range of different virus families including SARSCoronavirus, Rabies virus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, Marburg virus and Ebola virus.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 138
Author(s):  
Lynda Wright

The Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), CSIRO is a high-containment facility and a vital part of Australia's national biosecurity infrastructure. AAHL closely collaborates with veterinary and human health agencies globally, as approximately 70 per cent of emerging infectious diseases in people originate in animals. The facility is designed to allow scientific research into the most dangerous infectious agents in the world and contains a large collection of serum and cell lines.


AMBIO ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charudutt Mishra ◽  
Gustaf Samelius ◽  
Munib Khanyari ◽  
Prashanth Nuggehalli Srinivas ◽  
Matthew Low ◽  
...  

AbstractThe cold and arid mountains and plateaus of High Asia, inhabited by a relatively sparse human population, a high density of livestock, and wildlife such as the iconic snow leopard Panthera uncia, are usually considered low risk for disease outbreaks. However, based on current knowledge about drivers of disease emergence, we show that High Asia is rapidly developing conditions that favor increased emergence of infectious diseases and zoonoses. This is because of the existing prevalence of potentially serious pathogens in the system; intensifying environmental degradation; rapid changes in local ecological, socio-ecological, and socio-economic factors; and global risk intensifiers such as climate change and globalization. To better understand and manage the risks posed by diseases to humans, livestock, and wildlife, there is an urgent need for establishing a disease surveillance system and improving human and animal health care. Public health must be integrated with conservation programs, more ecologically sustainable development efforts and long-term disease surveillance.


Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.


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