Vector-borne infectious diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and plague, cause a significant fraction of the global infectious disease burden; indeed, nearly half of the world's population is infected with at least one type of vector-borne pathogen (CIESIN, 2007; WHO, 2004a). Vector-borne plant and animal diseases, including several newly recognized pathogens, reduce agricultural productivity and disrupt ecosystems throughout the world. These diseases profoundly restrict socioeconomic status and development in countries with the highest rates of infection, many of which are located in the tropics and subtropics. Although this workshop summary provides an account of the individual presentations, it also reflects an important aspect of the Forum philosophy. The workshop functions as a dialogue among representatives from different sectors and allows them to present their beliefs about which areas may merit further attention. These proceedings summarize only the statements of participants in the workshop and are not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of the subject matter or a representation of consensus evaluation. Vector-Borne Diseases : Understanding the Environmental, Human Health, and Ecological Connections, Workshop Summary (Forum on Microbial Threats) summarizes this workshop.

This open access book identifies and discusses biodiversity’s contribution to physical, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the book identifies the implications of this relationship for nature conservation, public health, landscape architecture and urban planning – and considers the opportunities of nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation. This transdisciplinary book will attract a wide audience interested in biodiversity, ecology, resource management, public health, psychology, urban planning, and landscape architecture. The emphasis is on multiple human health benefits from biodiversity - in particular with respect to the increasing challenge of climate change. This makes the book unique to other books that focus either on biodiversity and physical health or natural environments and mental wellbeing. The book is written as a definitive ‘go-to’ book for those who are new to the field of biodiversity and health.

Population Biology of Vector-Borne Diseases is the first comprehensive survey of this rapidly developing field. The chapter topics provide an up-to-date presentation of classical concepts, reviews of emerging trends, synthesis of existing knowledge, and a prospective agenda for future research. The contributions offer authoritative and international perspectives from leading thinkers in the field. The dynamics of vector-borne diseases are far more intrinsically ecological compared with their directly transmitted equivalents. The environmental dependence of ectotherm vectors means that vector-borne pathogens are acutely sensitive to changing environmental conditions. Although perennially important vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue have deeply informed our understanding of vector-borne diseases, recent emerging viruses such as West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, and Zika virus have generated new scientific questions and practical problems. The study of vector-borne disease has been a particularly rich source of ecological questions, while ecological theory has provided the conceptual tools for thinking about their evolution, transmission, and spatial extent. Population Biology of Vector-Borne Diseases is an advanced textbook suitable for graduate level students taking courses in vector biology, population ecology, evolutionary ecology, disease ecology, medical entomology, viral ecology/evolution, and parasitology, as well as providing a key reference for researchers across these fields.

Recent research on skin immunity and the skin microbiome reveals the complexity of the skin and its importance in the development of immunity against arthropod-borne diseases. In diseases such as malaria, borreliosis, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, etc., the skin interface has been shown as an essential site for pathogens to hide from the immune system, and as a potential site of persistence. Only very few vaccines have been successfully developed so far against these diseases, likely because of an insufficient understanding on the development of skin immunity against pathogens. Skin and Arthropod Vectors expands our knowledge on the role of the skin interface during the transmission of arthropod-borne diseases and particularly its immunity. This work may support researchers who strive for developing more efficient diagnostic tools and vaccines. It also gives scientists and advanced students working in related areas a better insight on how humans and animals are attractive to arthropods to develop better repellents, or to set up transgenic arthropods. Offers the only compilation of research focusing on both the skin interface and arthropod vectors, with contributions from international experts Advances research in the effort toward generating more effective diagnostic tools and vaccines focusing on the skin interface Can also serve as supplemental material for dermatology lectures or specialized lectures on medical entomology and skin immunity

The vector-borne Zika virus joins avian influenza, Ebola, and yellow fever as recent public health crises threatening pandemicity. By a combination of stochastic modeling and economic geography, this book proposes two key causes together explain the explosive spread of the worst of the vector-borne outbreaks. Ecosystems in which such pathogens are largely controlled by environmental stochasticity are being drastically streamlined by both agribusiness-led deforestation and deficits in public health and environmental sanitation. Consequently, a subset of infections that once burned out relatively quickly in local forests are now propagating across susceptible human populations whose vulnerability to infection is often exacerbated in structurally adjusted cities. The resulting outbreaks are characterized by greater global extent, duration, and momentum. As infectious diseases in an age of nation states and global health programs cannot, as much of the present modeling literature presumes, be described by interacting populations of host, vector, and pathogen alone, a series of control theory models is also introduced here. These models, useful to researchers and health officials alike, explicitly address interactions between government ministries and the pathogens they aim to control.

This work aims to advance the intellectual understanding of the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases. Practitioners of diverse disciplines - epidemiology, evolutionary biology, environmental sciences, ecology, climatology, social and behavioural sciences, entomology, microbiology, parasitology and virology - report on recently developed techniques from many areas, including molecular biology, genetics, mathematical modelling and remote sensing. These techniques are exploited in an attempt to understand global configurations of infectious disease emergence. Analysis of historical examples reveals patterns not apparent during a single lifetime of observation. This volume emphasises the creative use of cross-disciplinary approaches to extend the limits of knowledge in this important area. These 32 papers were presented at a workshop held by the Harvard School of Public Health at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 7th-10th November.

A single tick bite can have debilitating consequences. Lyme disease is the most common disease carried by ticks in the United States, and the number of those afflicted is growing steadily. If left untreated, the diseases carried by ticks-known as tick-borne diseases-can cause severe pain, fatigue, neurological problems, and other serious health problems. The Institute of Medicine held a workshop October 11-12, 2010, to examine the state of the science in Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.