Why are so many viruses reappearing?

What we are experiencing now is likely to be our new way of life, forcing us to adapt to a more risky world much like we did after 9/11. will be We acknowledged that there are new air travel, security and identification rules to prevent terrorism. We also have to accept changes in the way we live and deal. The Era of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

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Most of the infectious diseases we consider “new” already exist in animals. Some animals don’t get sick, but have hosts inside them. The virus shed from chimpanzees to humans and began spreading from person to person. In HIV, its influence It likely originated in the early 1900s, but it took decades before scientists realized it was killing people.

Our ability to detect new diseases through laboratory testing is improving every day, so public health agencies are detecting new threats more quickly. But this alone cannot fully explain why so many new infections have emerged, and why so many old ones, such as polio, have reappeared.

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what explains that? One way to think about this is like a sports competition. Bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic threats attack, and the systems we create to detect and respond to infections defend. Over the past 20 years, our offenses have stepped up, but our defenses have not kept pace.

Here are five reasons why microbes seem to be winning right now.

Humans are increasingly encroaching on animal environments such as forests and jungles. Studies show that the places with the highest risk of new diseases appearing are: edge of forest and jungleThe animals that survive and thrive there are also those most likely to carry infections that are dangerous to humans. mouse and bat(Coronaviruses are examples of viruses that most likely originated in bats.) Sometimes spillovers pass through insects rather than directly. For example, ticks and mosquitoes bite animals, and infected animals bite humans and transmit the disease to humans, much like Lyme disease.

Covid, monkeypox, polio: viral summer reflects travel, warming trends

Humans are raising, trading and consuming more animalsAs the economy grows and people move out of poverty, people want to eat more protein. This means that there is a growing need to raise animals in large numbers, sell them and ship them around the world. , and then spread to humans through pollution, etc. food Also water. New drug resistance “Super Bug” stocks of salmonellaoften occurs in this way.

Humans are more concentrated in cities than ever before. If you want disease to spread from person to person, there’s no better place than lots of people crammed into tiny homes, living next door to other families in tiny homes, rubbing against each other every day. , most major cities in the world are molded Somehow by previous fads.

Humans are moving more. This includes people who travel across borders and fly around the world for business or pleasure. In the United States, it is no surprise that New York, the city with the most international connections, has always been the first or hardest city to be hit by new infectious diseases such as Zika, covid-19 and monkeypox. There is none.

Climate change has accelerated all these factors. Extreme weather events, droughts, and changes in temperature are driving humans to move to cities, clear forests and jungles across borders, and seek new land to grow crops and find food. changes are not unique to humans.Animals, mosquitoes and ticks have also found new settlements and are now causing ‘tropical’ diseases occurs in places No one ever thought of it as tropical.

So what can we do to ensure our safety? Make sure you and your family are up to date with immunizations. You should also stay as healthy as possible, including chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. You can keep yourself safer by seeing a doctor.

Stay on top of the news, know what threats are looming, and take the time to think about what you would do in the event of a respiratory virus pandemic or a major contamination of your water supply. please. Think about these scenarios deep in a short time can reduce anxiety Like a fire drill, it helps prepare for these events should they occur.

You can also contact elected officials and ask them to support measures to strengthen public health and mitigate climate change. No matter how scary the world looks right now, you have the ability to do something about it.

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