Pathogen–host–environment interplay and disease emergence

Engering, Anneke; Hogerwerf, Lenny; Slingenbergh, Jan

While the existing, well-established disease complexes are causing most of the actual human suffering in the form of chronic disease burdens, the respective pathogens are relatively inflexible (e.g., specialist infectious disease pathogens or macroparasites) and more responsive to health protection measures. 18 Yet, in poor countries, there is usually a lack of investment to address even these old diseases. In fact, in these countries, the fight against old and new diseases would present a twin objective. In contrast, in the wealthier countries, many of the old diseases have been eliminated, are being effectively suppressed or never occurred. Naturally, this does not apply to EID events and pandemic threats remain a major global concern. Disrupting the transmission of EID events may turn notoriously difficult and a more preventative approach is therefore called for, with creation of robustness and resilience at the human/food and agriculture/ecosystems interfaces, collectively involving health professionals, in particularly at the community level, farmers, hunters, tourists, consumers and the public at large. 103 It is in this sense that the here presented framework for emerging infectious disease analysis may be usefully applied.