Research Papers:

The Effect of Land Use Change on Exposure to and Transmission of Pathogens
Abstract: New infectious diseases from zoonotic sources and vectors continue to emerge in human populations. Malaria, the world’s most prevalent vector-borne disease, killed 655,000 people in 2011. Environmental changes play a major role in the emergence of infectious diseases such as malaria. Roads are partially responsible for many of these changes—primarily deforestation, landscape changes and climate change—and also facilitate disease transmission and spread through human migration. My research explores how these changes promote the survival, reproduction and success of Plasmodium malaria pathogens and malaria’s anopheline mosquito vectors. Furthermore, I expand on how roads can move infected persons and mosquitoes to uninfected areas, as well as move uninfected persons to infected areas.
Keywords: malaria, disease, roads, deforestation, environment, transmission

Other Information:

Every time you set foot on a crowded subway or touch the railing along the stairs as you climb out of the tunnel at the end of your commute, innumerable microbes are sticking to you like pieces of grit on a piece of toast that lands buttered-side down. The chance of one of these microbes being a potentially dangerous virus is high. We cross our fingers and hope that it dies before we bite a nail or wipe our little cousin’s nose. The ever-increasing road density and criss-crossing railroads are transporting more than just people and packages. Nathan Wolfe opens his readers’ eyes to how our travel culture is exposing us to greater and greater risks for the next big pandemic:

Wolfe, Nathan D. The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age. London, UK: Allen Lane, 2012.