Review of “Fighting the Rise of Emerging Infectious Diseases”

While it is increasingly common to hear most doomsayers proclaiming that the end of the human species will be the result of technology (particularly nuclear power) or lack of respect for the environment, it might actually be that Mother Nature herself is the threat. This is the point that Corrie Brown and Thijs Kuiken touch upon in their article “Fighting the Rise of Emerging Infectious Diseases.” One of the reasons for their concern is that many of the more severe new diseases that humans have been facing in the past few decades come from different animals. These diseases have been able to make the leap from animal to human seemingly fast and easily.

In the article, an emerging disease is defined as a “known disease or closely related agent appearing in a new geographic area or occurring in a new species.” This could also refer to a disease that humans have just recently gained knowledge of, although 75% of emerging diseases in the past few decades have come from animal sources. The name for this kind of evolutionary leap from animal to human pathogen is called “zoonosis.” Brown and Kuiken argue that there needs to be increased monitoring of both animal and human health, as well as communication between various agencies in charge of this surveillance. The authors feel that the measures are necessary in order to avoid an epidemic, such as the Bubonic plague, or a worldwide epidemic, also known as a “pandemic,” such as the current HIV crisis.

The authors posit that the reasons for the majority of emerging diseases coming from animal sources are due to the increasing human population of the world, as well as the globalization of trade. The latter reason is significant because it includes the buying and selling of animals and good...

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...d result could be a virus as pathogenic as the former but with the ability to move from human-to-human with relative ease like the latter.

All of this information is enough to keep one up at night, but in the article, Brown and Kuiken go so far as to propose a way to lessen the risk of an epidemic or pandemic. They propose that a health monitoring system be created that unites agencies focusing on both human and animal (livestock and wild populations) welfare. They believe that a panel of experts should be created to form such a system in order to examine the most cost-effective ways of dealing with these situations, as well as to have a group that can inform governments when there is a problem. Perhaps the most important aspect of this idea is that emerging diseases be reported before they become extremely pathogenic. After all, at that point, it could be too late.