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. 2003 Nov;1(2):E22.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0000022. Epub 2003 Nov 17.

Beyond the fire-hazard mentality of medicine: the ecology of infectious diseases

Jane Bradbury  1
Affiliations

Beyond the fire-hazard mentality of medicine: the ecology of infectious diseases

Jane Bradbury. PLoS Biol. 2003 Nov.

Abstract

Information on how infectious organisms, their vectors, and hosts interact with each other and with their environment is essential for an integrated approach to disease prevention and control

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Women at a Village Pond in Matlab, Bangladesh, Washing Utensils and Vegetables
The woman on the right is putting a sari filter onto a water-collecting pot (or kalash) to filter water for drinking. (Picture courtesy of Anwar Huq, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Baltimore, Maryland, United States.)
Figure 2
Figure 2. The Emergence of AHF
The emergence of AHF coincided with wide-scale changes in agricultural practices on the pampas of Argentina. (Picture courtesy of Delia Enria, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Virales Humanas, Pergamino, Argentina.)
Figure 3
Figure 3. Acorns at the Base of a Red Oak (Quercus rubra) during a Heavy Year of Mast Production
Many species of wildlife, including white-footed mice (P. leucopus), an important disease reservoir for Lyme disease, feast on acorns during years of high availability. (Picture courtesy of Rick Ostfeld; photograph by Molly Ahearn.)
Figure 4
Figure 4. The Host for Hantavirus
The deer mouse (P. maniculatus) is the reservoir host for the Sin Nombre hantavirus, the cause of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. (Picture courtesy of the CDC and the Partnership, Inc.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

Cholera

    1. Colwell RR, Huq A, Islam MS, Aziz KM, Yunus NH, et al. Reduction of cholera in Bangladeshi villages by simple filtration. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003;100:1051–1055. Field trial of sari cloth filtration to reduce cholera outbreaks, a low-tech, ecology-based approach to disease prevention. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cottingham KL. Tackling biocomplexity: The role of people, tools, and scale. BioScience. 2002;52:793–799. To understand, predict, and manage ecological responses to anthropogenic change requires the collaboration of people from many different disciplines. In this article, Cottingham describes three examples of how aquatic ecosystems are being studied using a biocomplexity research approach.
    1. Cottingham KL, Chiavelli DA, Taylor RK. Environmental microbe and human pathogen: The ecology and microbiology of Vibrio cholerae. Front Ecol Environ. 2003;1:80–86. Overview of the ecology of V. cholerae and discussion of how understanding this can help in controlling the persistence and spread of cholera.

Dengue

    1. Gubler DJ. Epidemic dengue/dengue hemorrhagic fever as a public health, social and economic problem in the 21st century. Trends Microbiol. 2002;10:100–103. An opinion piece describing the re-emergence of dengue and calling for integrated community-based prevention and control programmes for dengue. - PubMed
    1. Messer WB, Gubler , DJ , Harris E, Sivananthan K, de Silva AM. Emergence and global spread of a dengue serotype 3, subtype III virus. Emerg Infect Dis. 2003;9:800–809. A recent paper describing an ecological and virological study of the emergence of dengue haemorrhagic fever in Sri Lanka in 1989. - PMC - PubMed

West Nile Virus

    1. Gubler DJ. The global emergence/resurgence of arboviral diseases as public health problems. Arch Med Res. 2002;33:330–342. Overview of the resurgence or emergence of several epidemic arboviral diseases including dengue and West Nile virus. - PubMed

Hantavirus and AHF

    1. Glass GE, Yates TL, Fine JB, Shields TM, Kendall JB, et al. Satellite imagery characterizes local animal reservoir populations of Sin Nombre virus in the southwestern United States. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002;99:16817–16822. Research paper describing the identification of refugia for the Sin Nombre hantavirus. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mills JN, Childs JE. Ecologic studies of rodent reservoirs: Their relevance for human health. Emerg Infect Dis. 1998;4:529–537. Review of how to study vertebrate host ecology and its relation to human disease in the light of increasing numbers of emerging diseases (including AHF) associated with small-mammal reservoirs. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yates TL, Mills JN, Parmenter CA, Ksiazek TG, Parmenter RR, et al. The ecology and evolutionary history of an emergent disease: Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. BioScience. 2002;52:989–998. This review describes the discovery of how El Niño-driven precipitation is sufficient to predict when human outbreaks of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome will occur.

Lyme Disease

    1. LoGiudice K, Ostfeld RS, Schmidt KA, Keesing F. The ecology of infectious disease: Effects of host diversity and community composition on Lyme disease risk. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003;100:567–571. This research paper describes how the loss of vertebrate biodiversity through habitat fragmentation or other anthropogenic forces can increase the incidence of Lyme disease. - PMC - PubMed