Rodents and bats as reservoirs of zoonoses: ecological and social determinants of human disease risk in Kenya

近几十年来，越来越多的危险疾病从动物种群传播到人类。在过去的三十年里，近三分之二的新人类疾病最初来自动物，而两种动物呢？啮齿动物和蝙蝠吗造成了其中不成比例的大部分。科学家们仍在试图了解这些疾病在其自然宿主中的表现，以及是什么原因导致它们蔓延到人群中，并往往造成致命的后果。解决这些复杂的问题需要新的研究方法，特别是在不同领域的科学家之间建立新的伙伴关系。在新的范式下，医生必须与兽医密切合作;反过来，这些专职医疗人员必须与野生动物生态学家、环境科学家和研究人类行为的人合作，建立新颖、有效的伙伴关系，使我们能够预测，更重要的是，预防未来的疾病爆发。人类历史上第一次，我们中居住在城市的人比居住在农村的人多，而且这个数字还在快速增长。城市将越来越多地成为抗击新出现疾病的新战场。这一点在第三世界的贫民窟中表现得最为真实，那里有世界上近三分之一的人口？中国的人口已经生活在过度拥挤的条件下，无法充分获得安全饮用水、卫生和保健服务。某些种类的啮齿动物和蝙蝠适应这种人类环境，生活在房屋，商店，下水道和花园中，并通过排泄物，寄生虫（跳蚤，螨和蜱）或直接接触（包括叮咬）交换病原体。在我们这个联系日益紧密的世界里，从这种环境中出现的一种新的人类疾病有能力迅速蔓延到地球仪，我们已经目睹了东南亚蝙蝠引起的SARS。该项目由格拉斯哥大学与肯尼亚，英国和美国的合作伙伴领导，旨在汇集来自不同背景的科学家，从人类和动物健康到历史和社会科学。他们的目标将是帮助了解人类疾病何时以及为什么会从动物宿主中出现，以及可以做些什么来防止未来的爆发。该项目的优势在于建立新的、有效的伙伴关系，以应对新出现的疾病威胁。同一个世界，同一个健康？

Recent decades have seen a growing number of dangerous diseases spreading to humans from animal populations. Nearly two-thirds of new human diseases recognized in the past three decades originally came from animals, and two types of animals ? rodents and bats ? are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of these. Scientists are still trying to understand how these diseases behave in their natural hosts, and what causes them to spill over into human populations, with often fatal consequences. Addressing these complex questions calls for new approaches to research, and particularly for the creation of new partnerships between scientists in different fields. Under the new paradigm, doctors must work closely with veterinarians; these allied health professionals must in turn engage with wildlife ecologists, environmental scientists, and those studying human behaviour, to create novel, effective partnerships that will enable us to predict and, importantly, prevent future disease outbreaks.For the first time in human history, more of us now live in cities than in the countryside, and this number is still growing rapidly. More and more, cities will become the new battleground where the war against emerging diseases will be fought. Nowhere is this more true than in the slums of the third world, where nearly a third of the world?s population already live in overcrowded conditions, with inadequate access to safe water, sanitation and health services. Certain species of rodents and bats are adapted to this human environment, living in houses, stores, sewers and gardens, and exchanging pathogens through excreta, parasites (fleas, mites and ticks), or direct contact, including bites. In our increasingly connected world, a new human disease which emerges from such an environment has the capacity to spread rapidly across the globe, an event we have already witnessed with the emergence of SARS from bats in south-east Asia. This project, led by the University of Glasgow with partners in Kenya, UK and USA, aims to bring together scientists from different backgrounds, ranging from human and animal health to history and social science. Their aim will be to help understand when and why human diseases emerge from animal hosts, and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks. The strength of the project lies in the creation of new, effective partnerships to address emerging disease threats, under the new paradigm of ?One World, One Health?.