Beyond the Fire-Hazard Mentality of Medicine The Ecology of Infectious Diseases.docVIP

Feature Beyond the Fire-Hazard Mentality of Medicine: The Ecology of Infectious Diseases Jane Bradbury F ifty years ago, many experts believed that the war against infectious diseases had largely able to predict or ameliorate disease outbreaks’. and so cholera remains an important global health problem. Because her studies showed that virtually all the V. cholerae in water supplies are attached to 200 μm–long zooplankton, Colwell reasoned that it might be possible to make water safe to drink simply by ?ltering it through layers of cloth. In a recent trial in rural Bangladesh, cholera rates were halved when villagers ?ltered their drinking water through eight layers of sari cloth, a From Ecology to Disease Prevention: The Cholera Example been won. But in the last 30 years of the 20th century, as people entered previously untouched wild areas or wreaked wide-scale changes on established ecosystems, numerous viruses (for example, Ebola) have jumped from their long-time animal hosts to people who, not having the appropriate immune A good example of how ecological studies can suggest new ways to prevent disease outbreaks is provided by the work of Rita Colwell, director of the United States’ National Science Foundation (Arlington, Virginia, defence, often succumb to virulent ‘emerging’ diseases. At the same cheap but effective and socially acceptable intervention, explains time, old enemies Colwell (Figure 1). such as dengue and Kathryn Cottingham hantavirus pulmonary syndrome have re- (Dartmouth College, Hanover, New emerged to cause Hampshire, United important human States) and her epidemics. All too team are also doing often when faced ecological studies on V. with these emerging cholerae that may help and re-emerging to improve cholera diseases, says hantavirus researcher Terry Yates (University of New control in developing countries. ‘We are recording the temporal Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United dynamics of both free- living and attached States), ‘societ