W11:Perilous Pathogens: Environmental Change and Zoonotic Diseases

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the epidemiology of zoonotic diseases, global health statistics, and the impacts of environmental and climate changes on pathogen transmission.

Zoonotic diseases

Pathogens that can jump between different species, specifically spreading from animals to humans.

Emerging Zoonoses Statistics

Of the 1,415 reported human infectious agents, $61\%$ ($868$) are zoonotic, and $75\%$ ($132$) of emerging species are zoonotic.

Spanish flu 1918

An outbreak of $H1N1$ influenza that resulted in $50$ million deaths.

AIDS 1981

A disease caused by $HIV$ that has resulted in $30$ million deaths.

Driving Forces of Zoonotic Emergence

Key factors including urbanization, climate change, deforestation, and wildlife exploitation and trade.

Vectorial capacity

A quantitative measure of a mosquito species' potential to transmit a pathogen in a given environment, incorporating biological and ecological traits of the vector and pathogen.

Extrinsic Incubation Period

The time required for a virus to multiply within a vector, such as the $8$ to $12$ days required for the Dengue virus in Aedes aegypti.

Anopheles

The mosquito vector for Malaria, which has an optimal adult development temperature of $\text{28--32}\,^\circ\text{C}$.

Plasmodium falciparum

The primary Malaria agent, which requires temperatures between $\text{16--33}\,^\circ\text{C}$ for transmission.

Dengue Virus

An arbovirus spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, characterized by symptoms such as fever ($40\,^\circ\text{C}$ / $104\,^\circ\text{F}$), nausea, and vascular manifestations like shock.

ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)

A climate phenomenon that intensifies global warming and shows statistical correlations with spikes in dengue cases $6\text{--}12$ months later.

Phocine distemper virus (PDV)

A virus causing high mortality in Atlantic seals, confirmed in sea otters in the North Pacific in $2004$, potentially linked to reductions in sea ice.

Usutu virus

A mosquito-borne disease that has caused an approximate $40\%$ decline in blackbirds in Greater London since $2020$.

Nipah virus (NiV)

A zoonotic virus associated with encephalitis; fruit bats (Pteropus spp.) are reservoirs and pigs act as intermediate/amplifying hosts.

Zero grazing

A man-made ecosystem practice where herds are permanently housed, increasing the risk of pathogen transmission and upsetting the host-parasite balance.

Lyme Disease Vector

The blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, whose abundance and infection rate with B. burgdorferi determine human risk.

RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway)

A greenhouse gas concentration trajectory used in climate modelling to project factors like future Lyme disease risk.

Dilution effect

A hypothesis in disease ecology suggesting that ecosystems with higher biodiversity (greater species richness) have a reduced risk of disease transmission to humans.

Anthrax Spores

Bacteria that can be released from thawing Arctic permafrost during heat waves, as seen in Siberia in $2016$.

E. coli O157:H7

An environmental pathogen whose presence in water sources is positively correlated with higher precipitation and summer temperatures.

Mammal range shifts

Climate change is forecast to cause $300,000$ pairs of mammals that have never met to encounter each other, with $88\%$ of encounters involving bats.