More mosquito species than previously thought may transmit Zika

Zika virus could be transmitted by more mosquito species than those currently known, according to a new predictive model created by ecologists at the University of Georgia and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Their findings, published today in the journal eLife, offer a list of 26 additional potential candidate […]

Waiting time to infectious disease emergence

Bifurcation delay is a phenomenon that occurs when dynamical systems go through a critical transition. Bifurcation delay occurs because the state of the system may continue to follow the path provided by one basin of attraction even after the stability landscape of the system has changed. For emerging infectious diseases, […]

Global patterns of zoonotic disease in mammals

The majority of infectious diseases currently emerging in humans originated in mammals. Yet we still know very little about the global patterns of mammal-to-human pathogen transmission. As a first step, researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the University of Georgia have assembled world maps of what’s on record […]

Future directions in analytics for infectious disease intelligence

Like earthquakes and tsunamis, much of the destructive potential of infectious diseases stems from the fact that they often strike unexpectedly, leaving little time for preparation. This is a problem for better analytics. In this paper, Barbara Han and John Drake argue that developing integrated warning system for predicting emerging pathogens is timely. Such a system will […]

Malaria transmission potential could be reduced with current and future climate change

Several studies suggest the potential for climate change to increase malaria incidence in cooler, marginal transmission environments. However, the effect of increasing temperature in warmer regions where conditions currently support endemic transmission has received less attention. We investigate how increases in temperature from optimal conditions (27 °C to 30 °C and 33 °C) interact […]

Undiscovered bat hosts of filoviruses

Preventing future outbreaks of ebolaviruses in humans and other vulnerable animal populations will require identifying the natural reservoirs of filoviruses. Accumulating indirect evidence points to certain bat species as prime suspects. To guide the search for natural filovirus reservoirs, a team involving Barbara Han (Cary Institute), David Hayman (Massey University) […]

The pertussis enigma: Reconciling epidemiology, immunology and evolution

Pertussis, a highly contagious respiratory infection, remains a public health priority despite the availability of vaccines for 70 years. Still a leading cause of mortality in developing countries, pertussis has re-emerged in several developed countries with high vaccination coverage. Resurgence of pertussis in these countries has routinely been attributed to […]

Coral diseases under the microscope

We propose ‘the moving target hypothesis’ to describe the aetiology of a contemporary coral disease that differs from that of its historical disease state. Hitting the target with coral disease aetiology is a complex pursuit that requires understanding of host and environment, and may lack a single pathogen solution. White […]

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