Communities and Ecosystems gone awry...Emerging Diseases
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that identifies the following factors contributing to disease emergence:
- Microbial adaption; e.g. genetic drift and genetic shift in Influenza A
- Changing human susceptibility; e.g. mass immunocompromisation with HIV/AIDS
- Climate and weather; e.g. diseases with zoonotic vectors such as West Nile Disease (transmitted by mosquitoes) are moving further from the tropics as the climate warms
- Change in human demographics and trade; e.g. rapid travel enabled SARS to rapidly propagate around the globe
- Economic development; e.g. use of antibiotics to increase meat yield of farmed cows leads to antibiotic resistance
- Breakdown of public health; e.g. the current situation in Zimbabwe
- Poverty and social inequality; e.g. tuberculosis is primarily a problem in low-income areas
- War and famine
- Bioterrorism; e.g. 2001 Anthrax attacks
- Dam and irrigation system construction; e.g. malaria and other mosquito borne diseases
- Just hit the news - Valley Fever - check out NPR report 5/13/13
Classroom assignment - Given your chosen/assigned Emerging Disease subtopic from the list above, research and respond to the following questions/prompts. Working with your partner, prepare a document to post in shared doc folder, "block 7 student access" or "block 6 student access"
1. Share 1-2 images that highlight the critical, possibly unique features of the disease
2. Briefly summarize the symptoms and the extent of the spreading of the disease.
3. Draw a connection between the information you have gathered about the particular emerging disease and the basic concepts included in the current ecology unit. Look through lists of new terminology, assessment statements, diagrams from support websites and text reading.
4. This should be completed for presentation to the class by the following class period. (Folks who are absent should add their contributions to the document after the fact, thanks!) Suggestion: avoid posting in entire paragraphs, use highlighting etc. to bring out the main, brief content.
1. Share 1-2 images that highlight the critical, possibly unique features of the disease
2. Briefly summarize the symptoms and the extent of the spreading of the disease.
3. Draw a connection between the information you have gathered about the particular emerging disease and the basic concepts included in the current ecology unit. Look through lists of new terminology, assessment statements, diagrams from support websites and text reading.
4. This should be completed for presentation to the class by the following class period. (Folks who are absent should add their contributions to the document after the fact, thanks!) Suggestion: avoid posting in entire paragraphs, use highlighting etc. to bring out the main, brief content.
