Urban Fringes Are Hot Spots for Emergence of Infectious Disease, Vietnam Bird Flu Study Confirms

The new East-West Center study finds that peri-urban areas where genetic, environmental and social factors converge were at significantly higher risk for outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Vietnam A new study led by East-West Center researchers and funded by the National Science Foundation has confirmed suspicions that "peri-urban" areas at the outer fringes of cities are particular hot spots for the emergence of animal-to-human infectious diseases. The study led by EWC researchers Sumeet Saksena and Jefferson Fox and published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, focused on outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, strain H5N1 in Vietnam between 2003 and 2005, which resulted in 45 million bird deaths and 106 confirmed human cases with 52 deaths. Their research concluded that the outbreaks in large part sprang from converging environmental and social risk factors brought on by development in these rural-urban transition zones (peri-urban areas), confirming what is known as the "convergence model" of animal-human disease emergence. "Our research model for the first time presents data-based evidence for the common-sense notion that the process of urbanization combines risk factors to produce peri-urban landscapes with significantly higher potential for infectious disease emergence," said lead researcher Saksena. The study notes that these areas have higher densities of domestic chickens, ducks and geese living alongside dense human po...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news