Understanding zoonotic disease risk using dynamic ecological models

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The natural world is expected to undergo a significant transformation over the next century, driven by climate change, habitat destruction, human population increase and greater globalisation. Many diseases, such as Ebola, Plague and Anthrax, are caught when people come into contact with wild animals and these diseases are called 'zoonoses'. Processes within the natural and human world dictate where the species that carry zoonoses are currently found, and any changes to these underlying processes will lead to differences in where disease-carrying species can live, and therefore, the locations where people can catch diseases from them. I will create the first, comprehensive but general model of the ecology and epidemiology of a set of high priority African zoonoses, focusing on those diseases that have a major impact on the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable human communities. My modelling approach will capture the seasonal and annual differences to the environmental conditions that host species experience and then determine the different physical routes by which species can then move around the globe to respond to environmental change. After testing against real disease case data, my modelling framework will, for the first time, allow researchers and policy makers to simultaneously aim to minimise the number of people who can contract a wide set of very different zoonoses, and then predict how climate and land-use change will impact these policy decisions in the future. My work has the potential to reduce disease burden and consequently levels of human suffering across Africa in the future.