Outbreak Of Diseases Like Zika And Ebola Can Now Be Predicted
Researchers at the University College London have developed a model that can predict outbreaks of zoonotic diseases such as Zika and Ebola that came from animals based on changes in climate, population growth and land use.
Professor Kate Jones, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment and ZSL, and lead author of the study said: “This model is a major improvement in our understanding of the spread of diseases from animals to people. We hope it can be used to help communities prepare and respond to disease outbreaks, as well as to make decisions about environmental change factors that may be within their control.”
The study, which was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, is described as “a major improvement in our understanding of the spread of diseases from animals to humans,” and said that the study could help governments prepare and respond to outbreaks, as well as consider the environmental risks when making policies.
According to the study, more than 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic by nature, and that aside from Zika and Ebola, other highly infectious diseases such as Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever are
predicted to spread with changing environmental factors.Lassa fever is endemic across West Africa and is caused by Lassa virus passing to people from rats. The model predicts that the number of people with the disease will double from 195,125 to 406,725 by 2070 due to climate change and a growing human population.
Like Ebola virus, Lassa virus causes hemorrhagic fever and can be fatal. How many people are affected by Lassa fever each year is unclear as many do not have severe symptoms and those that do are often misdiagnosed with malaria, researchers said.
“Our new approach successfully predicts outbreaks of individual diseases by pairing the changes in the host’s distribution as the environment changes with the mechanics of how that disease spreads from animals to people, which has not been done before,” said David Redding from UCL.
Researchers say the model could be refined to consider zoonotic disease transmission within human populations by including the impact of travel infrastructure, human-to-human contact rates and poverty — something that would have been of enormous use in the recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks.
