Pandemocene: a review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20234154Keywords:
Evolution, Epochs, Infectious diseases’ pandemics, PandemoceneAbstract
The history of humans has been divided into epochs, which are characterized by the prevalence of comparable conditions and are named based on their direct or indirect interactions with their environments. It is widely recognized that we are currently in the Anthropecene epoch. Infectious diseases have impacted humans in a different extent throughout its history. The numbers of viral infection pandemics in three quarter-century clusters (25 years each) formed from 1950 to the present day were compared by examining data figures from the literature. The source of the data is obtained entirely from the published articles relating the subject. The frequency of infectious disease pandemics has increased significantly in recent decades. Roughly speaking, there is an interaction between human population density, human activities and the impact of infection outbreaks. This increase in the frequency of pandemics may be associated with the increase in population density as well as the negative impact of humans on the environment. It may be appropriate to coin this most recent epoch as Pandemocene.
Metrics
References
Dethlefsen L, McFall-Ngai M, Relman DA. An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human-microbe mutualism and disease. Nature. 2007;449:811-8.
Seymour V. The Human–Nature Relationship and Its Impact on Health: A Critical Review Frontiers in Public Health. 2016;4.
Kwang HK. Origins of Bipedalism Biological and Applied Sciences. Braz Arch Biol Technol. 2015;58(6).
Cerling TE, Levin NE, Quade J, Wynn JG, Fox DL, Kingston JD, Klein RG, Brown FH. Comment on the Paleoenvironment of Ardipithecus ramidus. Science. 2010;328(5982):1105.
Mellars P. Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa 60,000 years ago? A new model. Proceed Nat Acad Sci. 2006;103(25):9381-6.
Fernández-Götz M. Urbanization in Iron Age Europe: Trajectories, Patterns, and Social Dynamics. J Archaeol Res. 2018;26:117-62.
International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) 2013-2022. Available at: https://stratigraphy.org /chart. Accessed on 07 October 2023.
Bai X, McPhearson T, Cleugh H, Nagendra H, Tong X, Zhu T, et al. Linking Urbanization and the Environment: Conceptual and Empirical Advances. Annual Rev Env Resources. 2017;42(1):215-40.
Ho WC, Zhang J. Evolutionary adaptations to new environments generally reverse plastic phenotypic changes. Nat Commun. 2018;9:350.
Ananth M. Human Organisms from an Evolutionary Perspective: Its Significance for Medicine. In: Schramme T, Edwards S, editors. Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 2016;243-71.
Ellison PT. Evolutionary Tradeoffs. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. 2014;2014(1):93.
Clatici VG, Voicu C, Voaides, Roseanu A, Icriverzi M, Jurcoane S, et al. Diseases of Civilization - Cancer, Diabetes, Obesity and Acne - the Implication of Milk, IGF-1 and mTORC1. Maedica. 2018;13(4):273-81.
Castree N. The Anthropocene: a primer for geographers. Geography. 2015;100(2):66-75.
Drew GC, Stevens EJ, King KC. Microbial evolution and transitions along the parasite–mutualist continuum. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2021;19:623-38.
Frew JW. The Hygiene Hypothesis, Old Friends, and New Genes. Front Immunol. 2019;10(388).
Harper KN, Zuckerman MK, Turner BL, Armelagos GJ, et al. Primates, Pathogens, and Evolution: A Context for Understanding Emerging Disease. Primates, Pathogens, and Evolution. 2013;389-409.
Mitchell PD. The origins of human parasites: Exploring the evidence for endoparasitism throughout human evolution. Int J Paleopathol. 2013;3(3):191-8.
Armelagos GJ. The paleolithic disease-scape, the hygiene hypothesis, and the second epidemiological transition. In: Rook GAW, editor. The Hygiene Hypothesis and Darwinian Medicine. Progress in Inflammation Research. Birkhäuser Basel. 2009;12:29-43.
Fuchs K, Rinne C, Drummer C, Immel A, Kyora BK, Nebel A. Infectious diseases and Neolithic transformations: Evaluating biological and archaeological proxies in the German loess zone between 5500 and 2500 BCE. The Holocene. 2019;29(10):1545-57.
Piret J, Boivin G. Pandemics Throughout History. Front Microbiol. 2021;11.
Sabbatani S. Epidemics on the sea: migrants journeys in the nineteenth century. Infez Med. 2015;23(2):195-206.
Bartram J, Cairncross S. Hygiene, sanitation, and water: forgotten foundations of health. Public Library Sci Med. 2010;7(11):e1000367.
Palatnik-de-Sousa CB. What Would Jenner and Pasteur Have Done About COVID-19 Coronavirus? The Urges of a Vaccinologist. Front Immunol. 2020;11.
Fauci AS, Morens DM. The Perpetual Challenge of Infectious Diseases. NEJM. 2012;366:454-61.
Aminov RI. A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and challenges for the future. Front Microbiol. 2010;1.
Zappa A, Amendola A, Romanò L, Zanetti A. Emerging and re-emerging viruses in the era of globalisation. Blood Transfus. 2009;7(3):167-71.
Feasey N, Wansbrough-Jones M, Mabey, DCW, Solomon AW. Neglected tropical diseases. Br Med Bull. 2010;93(1):179-200.
Thuy TT. Effects of DDT on environment and human health. J Educ Soc Sci. 2015;2.
Kabasenche WP, Skinner MK. DDT, epigenetic harm, and transgenerational environmental justice. Environ Health. 2014;13:62.
Tleyjeh IM, Tlaygeh HM, Hejal R, Montori VM, Baddour LM. The Impact of Penicillin Resistance on Short-Term Mortality in Hospitalized Adults with Pneumococcal Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Clin Infect Dis, 2006;42(6):788-97.
Bhattacharya S. The facts about penicillin allergy: a review. J Adv Pharm Technol Res. 2010;1(1):11-7.
Roychoudhury S, Das A, Sengupta P, Dutta S, Roychoudhury S, Choudhury AP, et al. Viral Pandemics of the Last Four Decades: Pathophysiology, Health Impacts and Perspectives. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(24):9411.
Olshansky S, Carnes B, Rogers R. Emerging infectious diseases: The fifth stage of the epidemiologic transition? World Health Statistics Quarterly. 1998;51(2,3,4):207-17.
Bramanti B, Dean KR, Walløe L. The Third Plague Pandemic in Europe. Proc R Soc B. 2019;28620182429.
Mutreja A, Kim D, Thomson NR, Connor TR, Lee JH, Kariuki S, et al. Evidence for several waves of global transmission in the seventh cholera pandemic. Nature. 2011;477:462-5.
Bhadoria P, Gupta G, Agarwal A. Viral pandemics in the past two decades: An overview. J Family Med Prim Care. 2021;10(8):2745-50.
World Health Organization. Multi-country monkeypox outbreak in non-endemic countries. Available at: https://www.who.int/emergencies/ disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON385. Accessed on 05 October 2023.
Lycett SJ, Duchatel F, Digard P. A brief history of bird flu. Phil Trans R Soc. 2019;374:20180257.
Musso D, Ko AI, Baud D. Zika Virus Infection - After the Pandemic. N Engl J Med. 2019;381:1444-57.
Dawood FS, Iuliano AD, Reed C, Meltzer MI, Shay DK, Cheng PY, et al. Estimated global mortality associated with the first 12 months of 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1 virus circulation: a modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2012;12(9):687-95.
UNFPA World Population. World Population Dashboard. Available at: https://www.unfpa.org/ data/world-population-dashboard. Accessed on 09 October 2023.
Uddin TM, Chakraborty AJ, Khusro A, Zidan BRM, Mitra S, Emran TB, et al. Antibiotic resistance in microbes: History, mechanisms, therapeutic strategies and future prospects. J Infect Public Health. 2021;14(12):1750-66.
Aggarwal R, Ranganathan P. Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: Linear regression analysis. Perspect Clin Res. 2017;8(2):100-2.
Katz C, Bolton J, Sareen J. The prevalence rates of suicide are likely underestimated worldwide: why it matters. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2016;51:125-7.
Wolf A, Gray R, Fazel S. Violence as a public health problem: An ecological study of 169 countries. Soc Sci Med. 2014;104:220-7.
Wolkewitz M, Barnett AG, Palomar Martinez M, Frank U, Schumacher M; IMPLEMENT Study Group. Interventions to control nosocomial infections: study designs and statistical issues. J Hosp Infect. 2014;86(2):77-82.
Thun M, Linet MS, Cerhan JR, Haiman CA, Schottenfeld D. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention. Oxford Scholarship. 2017;201-11.
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). Global Warming and Hurricanes. Available at: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/. Accessed on 03 October 2023.
Herrera VMV. The periodicity of Super Atlantic Hurricanes. J Earth Sci Climate Change. 2013;4:4.
Murakami H, Delworth TL, Cooke WF, Zhao M, Xiang B, Hsu PC. Detected climatic change in global distribution of tropical cyclones. J Proceed Nat Acad Sci. 2020;117(20):10706-14.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
