infectious disease

Figuring out the what, where and when of disease outbreaks By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs Plague, Lyme disease, Hantavirus, West Nile Virus—these bacteria and viruses are zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted to people from animals like ticks, mosquitoes and rodents and were the subject of a recent Ecological Society of America (ESA) congressional briefing. Disease transmission…

by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer The pressures of global trade may heighten disease incidence by dictating changes in land use. A boom in disease-carrying ticks and chiggers has followed the abandonment of rice cultivation in Taiwanese paddies, say ecologist Chi-Chien Kuo and colleagues, demonstrating the potential for global commodities pricing to drive the spread of infections. Their work appears…

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer   No one speaks for the endangered poliomyelitis. No one raises money to protect the last survivors, as health workers stalk the virus through its last redoubts in India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. On the contrary, the WHO spends billions on hunting it to extinction. But the virus has held out…