Essay on Emerging Infectious Diseases: Causes of Outbreak

We as humans are currently at war with a pandemic, a virus known as COVID-19, an infectious disease that has devasted a large portion of our world. Covid-19 is one example of the many infectious diseases that have devasted our world throughout the past decades (Kim, 2020). As a modern society, we have endured the effects of horrid diseases including Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, AIDS/HIV, Swine Flu, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Morse, 2003). As our civilization continues to develop as both individuals and a group, we are making physical and physiological adaptations that are making us more prone and susceptible to these infectious diseases’ outbreaks (Morse, 2003). Modern civilization is the most prone it has ever been to the effects of pathogens and the diseases in which they cause, with the transmission and development rates of these pathogens both new and re-emerging beginning to reach chilling rates (Joffe, 2011). Throughout this essay, I will be discussing what areas of modern societies’ development that has impacted the advanced risk in we now face as a population from outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The first perspective in which I will address is the shifting and developing human behaviors and lifestyle choices of individuals throughout our community in which have contributed to both the development and discovery of new sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and AIDS (Ghosn et al., 2018). HIV and AIDS are two of the most common and detrimental sexually transmitted diseases in which have affected our population the most since first being introduced to society just over 30 years ago (Piot et al., 2001). With over 36 million diagnosed cases by 2001, just 20 years after being discovered, and nearly 20 million deaths, these diseases soon became an outbreak in which caused great concern as it adventured out of the epicenter located in Africa and throughout the rest of the world (Piot et al., 2001). They are a relatively new strain of the disease that was believed to have originated in a sub-species of chimpanzees that was transmitted to humans via the consumption of their meats, and by contaminated vaccines produced using chimpanzee cells in the 1940s (Gao et al.,1999). They are both diseases in which are passed from host to host through bodily fluids such as blood, semen, pre-seminal fluids, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk, the transmission occurs normally during intercourse or sexual activity but was found to be passed on through the sharing of needles as well, there once it has entered the body it destroys the hosts T-lymphocytes, a crucial aspect of the human immune system which is then devastated and at this stage it is when the patient now has AIDS. (Gao et al.,1999). Due to this as the increase in risk-taking sexual behavior and drug use started to become more and more popular so did the transmission of these diseases. This is an example of how human behaviors shift and subsequently become psychosocial impactors to the spread of such a destructive disease (Ghosn et al., 2018).

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Throughout human history, we have lived amongst small groups and inside small regions without having to interact with a large group of people daily, thus meaning our travel and transport was limited, and the ability for transmission was restricted. The interaction between fauna, flora and people from all areas of the world has only happened throughout the recent decades as we have found ways to make traveling accessible, and convenient to society (Diamond, 1998). This is the second point in which I wish the analyze, the impact in which human activity such as travel, transport and interaction with animals has increased during recent eras and led to an increased rate of transmission of infectious diseases. Originally, the spread of new and dangerous infectious diseases could only go as far as people could walk, but as technology advanced creating boats, cars, airplanes, etc, so did the speed and morbidity rate of these new diseases. With the ability to be able to travel to any location, the disease spread rapidly, causing worldwide pandemics (Diamond, 1998). A prime example of this in action is our most recent worldwide pandemic, which we are currently in the midst of, being Covid-19. Covid-19 is a disease in which originated in Wuhan, China in late 2019, and by 2020 not only had the incidence and mortality rates reached horrifying numbers due to the Chinese population's intense human-to-human contact rates, but the disease had managed to infect most of the world by just February 2020 (Xu et al, 2020). This is a key example of how the ability to travel from country to country in just hours, due to our technological advances in the modern day, allows for transmission to no longer contain within certain communities but spread around the world in a matter of months. This is an issue that will only continually become worse as our world continues to trade and travel between each other, and technology allows us to increase these aspects of humanity, making not only certain regions now vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks but the entire world.

In addition, to the larger scale perspective of travelling, there is also the issue of our dense populations and the transport used, which has undergone numerous advancements in the past decades and become an extremely high-risk factor for transmission of infectious diseases. With the world’s population continuing to steadily increase, the desire and use for public transport among communities is being faced with overcrowding and health risk problems, especially in dense areas. The effect this has on infectious diseases is the way in which it increases the amount of human interaction and potentially instigates a higher probability of contracting infectious diseases from each other (Conceicao et al. 2013). Public transport is a commonly used way of commuting from different areas of cities, states and even countries, and can see hundreds of people entering the same single vehicle all throughout the day (Conceicao et al. 2013). This produces numerous properties in which multiple people are using and interacting with, including things such as handrails, seats and buttons within the vehicle along with the obvious increase in close human-to-human contact. This subject was focused on in a research that was conducted throughout a community in Portugal called Lisbon (Conceicao et al. 2013). The researchers closely examined buses in a certain area, swabbing particular areas which were seen to be at risk of buses. They conducted this on 199 buses from a number of varying routes and resulted in the finding of large quantities of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (Conceicao et al. 2013). These results allowed them to confirm that the increased use and availability to varying transport options in which are available to the public, promote overcrowding in confined spaces and can cause a distinctive increase in new infectious diseases (Conceicao et al. 2013). This contributes to how the technological advancements of today’s world has allowed us to gain access to such things as public transport, which is playing a substantial role in the enhanced susceptibility to infectious disease outbreaks. This issue, combined with that of dense populations, are two human-inflicted factors that will only continue to increase.

The last perspective which I will be discussing is that of the effect that climate change has played in causing an adverse outcome for the transmission of infectious diseases (Raffelet al., 2013). Due to the way in which the world has developed and produced numerous technological devices which have become necessary for daily life, the world has experienced a significant increase in our energy use. This has consequently brought about a rise in the greenhouse emissions that are entering our atmosphere yearly and has triggered the current issue of Global Warming to become apparent (McMichael 2006). Global warming has caused substantial rises in the worldwide average temperatures and altered weather patterns significantly, presenting more rainfall which when mixed with humid conditions are an environment perfect for hosts, pathogens, bacterium and parasites to become stronger and thrive (Lindgrenet al., 2012). One of the most known diseases Ebola is known to be affected by this, as the disease is of zoonotic origin and requires a mosquito to transfer the infection to humans (Hotez, 2016). These conditions have allowed for the rate of mosquito reproduction to increase and allowed for them to be present in higher quantities throughout much of Africa. This poses a massive threat to the communities in which are affected by these diseases as the transmission rates continue to soar. This problem is not only present in Ebola, but in other infectious diseases in which use mosquitoes as vectors, such as Dengue fever and Zika virus, also seeing effect due to this (Hotez, 2016). The significant changes in temperature have also resulted in more natural disasters and more extreme climatic conditions making for the spread of pathogens to appear more (Lindgrenet al., 2012). These factors have ultimately caused the outbreaks of many waterborne diseases such as Campylobacteriosis, a disease caused by the consumption of contaminated water with feces (Coker, 2002). In addition, the higher water temperatures allow for an increased growth rate of specific pathogens such as Vibrio, which has an effect on the outbreaks of foodborne diseases, especially in seafood (Coker, 2002). These are only two examples of many in which climate change has had an effect on the transmission and growth of pathogens and caused outbreaks of infectious diseases around the world, with many others being present in the current day. This factor is one that will only continue to become more apparent as the effect of global warming continues to increase and create idealistic conditions for outbreaks to occur, and for the extent of such outbreaks to become more destructive.

To conclude, infectious diseases and the outbreaks that can result from them pose a tremendous threat against humankind, in both the present times and for generations to come. With the perspectives that I have discussed above, technological advances, transport, travel, and behavioral activities of humans, continue to advance and develop in ways that will only increase, the threat of these epidemics to our world will continue to surge, with many more outbreaks becoming present. Situations like the current Covid-19 epidemic will likely continue to become more regular as society continues to create an environment and circumstances perfect for infectious diseases. We will see new forms of infectious diseases originate as past pathogens mutate and create characteristics unable to be contained. The re-emergence and increase in current diseases will also likely cause problems in the near future as present diseases continue to re-appear in higher quantities and at more alarming rates. Overall, the main cause of these infectious disease risks which are posed onto our world, are initiated by humans themselves, and without change within our societies, the effect will start to take hold of our lives.

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