Impact of Epidemiological Transition on Biodiversity

Abstract

Modern human civilization, now undergoing the third epidemiological transition, is characterized by newly emerging infectious diseases as well as reemerging infectious diseases which were previously thought to be under control. Such transition is mainly caused by globalization and ecological disruption including biodiversity loss, pollution and global climate change. Disruption of normal ecosystem function through anthropogenic inputs causes an ecosystem to be less resilient, more vulnerable to shocks and disturbances and less able to supply required material for human with needed economical as well as social services and results in an unhealthy environment in which we live. In this degraded environment, biodiversity loss diminishes the supplies of raw materials for drug discovery and biotechnology, causes a loss of medical models, affects the spread of human diseases and threatens food production, and water quality. Human susceptibility to infections becomes further compounded by malnutrition due to food insecurity, over population and potential alterations in the human immune system caused by increased flux of ultraviolet radiation and due to ozone layer depletion. Each environmental change, whether natural or anthropogenic, changes the ecological balance and context within which disease hosts or vectors and parasites breed, develop and transmit disease. All these events that upset normal environmental equilibrium result in the outbreak of recent epidemiological transition. To overcome this transition, the interrelationships between society and nature and the importance of environmental health in human health must be considered in a broader perspective.