College of the Sciences and Mathematics, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA, USA.
Chadds Ford Elementary School, Chadds Ford, PA, USA.
Environ Monit Assess. 2018 May 9;190(6):337. doi: 10.1007/s10661-018-6711-6.
Land use change near dense forests is the single major cause of emergence of forest-based emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) among humans. In an attempt to predict where the next EID would originate from, we are hypothesizing that future EIDs would originate from a region having high population density, excessive poverty, and is located near dense vegetation. Using ArcGIS, we identified forest regions in ten countries across the globe that meet all the three conditions identified in the hypothesis. We further narrowed down the locations using Global Forest Watch data, which eliminates locations next to protected forests and fragmented forests. Our results indicate that there is high likelihood of next infectious disease originating from the southern and eastern forests around Freetown in Sierra Leone, the forest region around Douala in Cameroon, or the southern forest region in Nigeria. Concerted efforts need to be made to identify any new disease in the areas as soon as it emerges in the human population and contain the spread within the population.
在密集森林附近的土地利用变化是人类新出现的森林源性传染病（EID）的唯一主要原因。为了预测下一个 EID 将源自何处，我们假设未来的 EID 将源自人口密度高、极度贫困且靠近茂密植被的地区。我们使用 ArcGIS 确定了全球十个国家的森林地区，这些地区符合假设中确定的三个条件。我们进一步使用全球森林观察数据缩小了位置范围，该数据消除了靠近受保护森林和森林破碎化地区的位置。我们的研究结果表明，下一个传染病很可能起源于塞拉利昂弗里敦周围的南部和东部森林、喀麦隆杜阿拉周围的森林地区或尼日利亚南部森林地区。需要做出协调一致的努力，在疾病在人类中出现时立即在这些地区识别出来，并在人群中控制其传播。
