PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 94: Toxicology and Disease : Viruses and Epidemics
Wednesday, August 10, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 514 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

The global homogenization of human parasitic and infectious diseases.

Smith, Katherine^*,1, Gaines, Steven¹, Sax, Dov¹, Guegan, Jean-Francois², Guernier, Vanina², ¹ University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA² Génétique et Évolution des Maladies Infectieuses, Montpellier, France

ABSTRACT- Despite the technological, social and economic benefits of globalization, the removal of barriers between and among nations has had negative effects on public health by enhancing the spread of diseases such as AIDS, West Nile virus and SARS. Admittedly, this is not a new phenomenon. Since the age of exploration, humans have introduced novel diseases to susceptible populations all over the planet. The magnitude of these introductions has created a world where many historically localized diseases are now broadly distributed. We examined presence-absence data for 317 human parasitic and infectious diseases (PIDs) in 223 nations to assess the extent to which PIDs exhibit global homogenization. Our results reveal that human parasitic and infectious diseases restricted to human reservoir hosts exhibit an extremely high degree of global homogenization, while those restricted to non-human reservoir hosts are far less broadly distributed. At the advent of a century characterized by record population growth, international trade and travel, exotic species introductions and climatic warming, we can expect the global homogenization of PIDs requiring alternate host species to increase.

Key words: human disease, global homogenization, exotic species