A burial team in Liberia awaits decontamination after performing"safe burials" for people who died of Ebola during the 2014-15 outbreak. Strains of the virus are harbored by bats and primates. A new study looks at how human activity affects the transmission of infectious diseases like Ebola.Human-caused climate change can push disease-carrying mosquitoes or ticks into new places as temperatures rise, and deforestation can expose humans to viruses circulating in once-isolated species.
"We look for general patterns because if they hold true, they might apply to humans," said Carlson."Even if these are findings that apply to bats and rodents and primates, but not necessarily us, it's still bad for us if bats and rodents are sicker, he says, in part because those diseases might jump to us.
The rapid pace of urbanization likely explains this counterintuitive result, Rohr says. When a grassland or forest is bulldozed for human development, most of the plants and animals are wiped out – along with their disease-causing parasites. Urban areas also tend to have better sanitation and access to health care, which could also account for the surprising result, too.