Population mobility and the geography of microbial threats

Abstract

Migration of humans shapes the distribution and patterns of infectious diseases globally (Wilson, 1995a). This has been true throughout recorded history (Berlinguer, 1992; Bruce-Chwatt, 1968; Crosby, 1989; Winkelstein, 1995). Today human travel is unprecedented in volume, reach, and speed. This massive and rapid movement is occurring in the context of global changes that favor the appearance of previously unrecognized microbial threats and a change in the distribution and burden from well known infectious diseases (Smolinski, Hamburg, &Lederberg, 2003; Wilson, Levins, &Spielman, 1994). Humans, in addition to carrying their own assemblage of microbial flora, orchestrate the movement of other species and biological material through extensive global travel and trading networks (Wilson, 2003). Humans also explore and enter new areas and change the environment in ways that place them at risk for new microbial threats (Wilson, 2000). Infectious diseases also threaten plants and animals; infections in other species have economic consequences and have direct and indirect impacts on human health and well being (Wilson, 1995b). Animals increasingly are recognized as a source of many newly recognized infectious diseases in humans. Social, economic, political, climatic, technologic, and environmental patterns influence microbial threats to health as well as their consequences and the responses to them. This chapter will review these themes and the central role of human migration in the dynamic geography of infectious diseases and context in which this is occurring (see Table 2.1). © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.