Emerging Pandemics: Connections with Environment and Climate Change

Pandemics are often associated with viruses and bacteria occurring in wildlife in natural environments. Thus, diseases of epidemic and pandemic scale are mostly zoonotic, some of which include AIDS, Zika virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and COVID-19. The book seeks to explore the documented history of pandemics and various epidemics that have the potential of turning into pandemics with the warming climate, pollution, and environmental destruction.

The book covers some of the most essential elements of the diseases of pandemic nature and their relationship with the environment:

• Environment as a reservoir of human diseases
• Climate change: emerging driver of infectious diseases
• Occurrence and environmental dimensions of specific pandemics and epidemics
• Pandemics, environment, and globalisation: understanding the interlinkage in the context of COVID-19
• Climate change and zoonotic diseases: malaria, plague, dengue, encephalitis
• Tuberculosis: an old enemy of mankind and possible next pandemic
• Lassa fever in Nigeria: case fatality ratio, social consequences, and prevention

There are cases where scientists fear that many epidemics have the potential of turning into pandemics, if we do not pay attention to them, and measures are not being taken to control these occurrences. This book attempts to provide integrated risk assessment on pandemics like COVID-19. It covers fundamental factors of global disease outbreaks through the complexity and severity of consequences. The information collated in this book will help in the design of mitigation measures, including behavioral changes that could prevent the emergence of such pandemics, thus protecting human life and minimising losses incurred due to diseases of such magnitude.