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. 2008 Feb 21;451(7181):990-3.
doi: 10.1038/nature06536.

Global trends in emerging infectious diseases

Kate E Jones  1 , Nikkita G Patel, Marc A Levy, Adam Storeygard, Deborah Balk, John L Gittleman, Peter Daszak
Affiliations

Global trends in emerging infectious diseases

Kate E Jones et al. Nature. .

Abstract

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a significant burden on global economies and public health. Their emergence is thought to be driven largely by socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors, but no comparative study has explicitly analysed these linkages to understand global temporal and spatial patterns of EIDs. Here we analyse a database of 335 EID 'events' (origins of EIDs) between 1940 and 2004, and demonstrate non-random global patterns. EID events have risen significantly over time after controlling for reporting bias, with their peak incidence (in the 1980s) concomitant with the HIV pandemic. EID events are dominated by zoonoses (60.3% of EIDs): the majority of these (71.8%) originate in wildlife (for example, severe acute respiratory virus, Ebola virus), and are increasing significantly over time. We find that 54.3% of EID events are caused by bacteria or rickettsia, reflecting a large number of drug-resistant microbes in our database. Our results confirm that EID origins are significantly correlated with socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors, and provide a basis for identifying regions where new EIDs are most likely to originate (emerging disease 'hotspots'). They also reveal a substantial risk of wildlife zoonotic and vector-borne EIDs originating at lower latitudes where reporting effort is low. We conclude that global resources to counter disease emergence are poorly allocated, with the majority of the scientific and surveillance effort focused on countries from where the next important EID is least likely to originate.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Number of EID events per decade.
EID events (defined as the temporal origin of an EID, represented by the original case or cluster of cases that represents a disease emerging in the human population—see Methods) are plotted with respect to a, pathogen type, b, transmission type, c, drug resistance and d, transmission mode (see keys for details).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Global richness map of the geographic origins of EID events from 1940 to 2004.
The map is derived for EID events caused by all pathogen types. Circles represent one degree grid cells, and the area of the circle is proportional to the number of events in the cell.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Global distribution of relative risk of an EID event.
Maps are derived for EID events caused by a, zoonotic pathogens from wildlife, b, zoonotic pathogens from non-wildlife, c, drug-resistant pathogens and d, vector-borne pathogens. The relative risk is calculated from regression coefficients and variable values in Table 1 (omitting the variable measuring reporting effort), categorized by standard deviations from the mean and mapped on a linear scale from green (lower values) to red (higher values).
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