Publication: Infectious diseases and their outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: Biodiversity and its regulation loss matter
Issued Date
2014-02-25
Resource Type
ISSN
19326203
Other identifier(s)
2-s2.0-84896128417
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Mahidol University
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
PLoS ONE. Vol.9, No.2 (2014)
Suggested Citation
Serge Morand, Sathaporn Jittapalapong, Yupin Suputtamongkol, Mohd Tajuddin Abdullah, Tan Boon Huan Infectious diseases and their outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: Biodiversity and its regulation loss matter. PLoS ONE. Vol.9, No.2 (2014). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090032 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/33052
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Title
Infectious diseases and their outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: Biodiversity and its regulation loss matter
Abstract
Despite increasing control measures, numerous parasitic and infectious diseases are emerging, re-emerging or causing recurrent outbreaks particularly in Asia and the Pacific region, a hot spot of both infectious disease emergence and biodiversity at risk. We investigate how biodiversity affects the distribution of infectious diseases and their outbreaks in this region, taking into account socio-economics (population size, GDP, public health expenditure), geography (latitude and nation size), climate (precipitation, temperature) and biodiversity (bird and mammal species richness, forest cover, mammal and bird species at threat). We show, among countries, that the overall richness of infectious diseases is positively correlated with the richness of birds and mammals, but the number of zoonotic disease outbreaks is positively correlated with the number of threatened mammal and bird species and the number of vector-borne disease outbreaks is negatively correlated with forest cover. These results suggest that, among countries, biodiversity is a source of pathogens, but also that the loss of biodiversity or its regulation, as measured by forest cover or threatened species, seems to be associated with an increase in zoonotic and vector-borne disease outbreaks. © 2014 Morand et al.