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 Describing their model as "a major improvement in our understanding
of the spread of diseases from animals to people", the researchers
said it could help governments prepare for and respond to disease
outbreaks, and to factor in their risk when making policies that
might affect the environment.
"Our model can help decision-makers assess the likely impact (on
zoonotic disease) of any interventions or change in national or
international government policies, such as the conversion of
grasslands to agricultural lands," said Kate Jones, a professor who
co-led the study at University College London's genetics, evolution
and environment department.
The model also has the potential to look at the impact of global
change on many diseases at once, she said.
Around 60 to 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases are
so-called "zoonotic events", where animal diseases jump into people.
Bats in particular are known to carry many zoonotic viruses.
The Ebola and Zika viruses, now well known, both originated in wild
animals, as did many others including Rift Valley fever and Lassa
fever that affect thousands already and are predicted to spread with
changing environmental factors.
Jones' team used the locations of 408 known Lassa fever outbreaks in
West Africa between 1967 and 2012 and the changes in land use and
crop yields, temperature and rainfall, behavior and access to health
care.
They also identified the sub-species of the multimammate rat that
transmits Lassa virus to humans, to map its location against
ecological factors.
The model was then developed using this information along with
forecasts of climate change, future population density and land-use
change.
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"Our approach successfully predicts outbreaks of individual diseases
by pairing the changes in the host's distribution as the environment
changes with the mechanics of how that disease spreads from animals
to people," said David Redding, who co-led the study.
"It allows us to calculate how often people are likely to come into
contact with disease-carrying animals and their risk of the virus
spilling over."
The team tested their new model using Lassa fever, a disease that is
endemic across West Africa and is caused by a virus passing to
people from rats. Like Ebola, Lassa causes hemorrhagic fever and can
be fatal.
The study, published in the journal Methods in Ecology and
Evolution, tested the model with Lassa and found the number of
infected people will double to 406,000 by 2070 from some 195,000 due
to climate change and a growing human population.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Andrew Roche)
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