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. 2014 Dec 6;11(101):20140950.
doi: 10.1098/rsif.2014.0950.

Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks

Katherine F Smith, Michael Goldberg, Samantha Rosenthal, Lynn Carlson, Jane Chen, Cici Chen, Sohini Ramachandran

Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks

Katherine F Smith et al. J R Soc Interface. .

Abstract

To characterize the change in frequency of infectious disease outbreaks over time worldwide, we encoded and analysed a novel 33-year dataset (1980-2013) of 12,102 outbreaks of 215 human infectious diseases, comprising more than 44 million cases occuring in 219 nations. We merged these records with ecological characteristics of the causal pathogens to examine global temporal trends in the total number of outbreaks, disease richness (number of unique diseases), disease diversity (richness and outbreak evenness) and per capita cases. Bacteria, viruses, zoonotic diseases (originating in animals) and those caused by pathogens transmitted by vector hosts were responsible for the majority of outbreaks in our dataset. After controlling for disease surveillance, communications, geography and host availability, we find the total number and diversity of outbreaks, and richness of causal diseases increased significantly since 1980 (p < 0.0001). When we incorporate Internet usage into the model to control for biased reporting of outbreaks (starting 1990), the overall number of outbreaks and disease richness still increase significantly with time (p < 0.0001), but per capita cases decrease significantly ( p = 0.005). Temporal trends in outbreaks differ based on the causal pathogen's taxonomy, host requirements and transmission mode. We discuss our preliminary findings in the context of global disease emergence and surveillance.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Global number of human infectious disease outbreaks and richness of causal diseases 1980–2010. Outbreak records are plotted with respect to (a) total global outbreaks (left axis, bars) and total number of diseases causing outbreaks in each year (right axis, dots), (b) host type, (c) pathogen taxonomy and (d) transmission mode. (Online version in colour.)
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Global outbreak diversity for the nations of the world over time. Diversity is calculated for each nation using Shannon's diversity index (SDI) as described in the methods. Nations with the highest diversity of outbreaks are represented by larger values and darker shading. (Online version in colour.)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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