2011 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 83-88
The rapid spread of emerging infectious diseases is a serious global environmental problem that is threatening humans, wildlife, and livestock worldwide. There is an important environmental component to infectious disease. While pathological studies inform effective disease treatment, study of disease ecology - the interactions between pathogen, host and human actions that may create or eliminate ‘fertile’ disease environments - is necessary for prediction and prevention of disease outbreaks. This study will help experts respond to emerging infectious diseases proactively, before they become a major health threat, through an understanding of environment - pathogen - human linkages. By doing so, the study will contribute to the safe coexistence of humans with pathogens to realize long-term societal security ((http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/z/index.html)). In this paper, a hypothesis on structure of disease outbreaks, the methods to analyze the environment - pathogen - human linkages, and some results obtained to date were described.
