Forty years ago, the age-old battle against infectious diseases as a major threat to human health was believed close to being won. However, by the late twentieth century, the increase of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases was evident in both low and high income countries. About 30 new infectious diseases have been identified in the last 20 years. Among the "new" diseases, and most importantly, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) epidemic, with 40 million persons infected and 25 million deaths since its first description, presents one of the most significant health, societal and security challenges facing the global community. The interaction of HIV/AIDS with tuberculosis, malaria and bacterial infections have increased HIV-related morbidity and mortality, and in turn, the HIV pandemic has brought about devastating increases in tuberculosis. Understanding the population impact and the dynamics of infection diseases in the most affected region is critical to efforts to reduce the morbidity and mortality of such infections, and for decisions on where to use limited resources in the fight against infections. This book aims to contribute to these efforts by offering a demographic and epidemiological perspective on emerging and reemerging infections in sub-Saharan Africa.

This book was written by undergraduate students at The Ohio State University (OSU) who were enrolled in the class Introduction to Environmental Science. The chapters describe some of Earth's major environmental challenges and discuss ways that humans are using cutting-edge science and engineering to provide sustainable solutions to these problems. Topics are as diverse as the students, who represent virtually every department, school and college at OSU. The environmental issue that is described in each chapter is particularly important to the author, who hopes that their story will serve as inspiration to protect Earth for all life.

Since the dawn of medical science, people have recognized connections between a change in the weather and the appearance of epidemic disease. With today's technology, some hope that it will be possible to build models for predicting the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases based on climate and weather forecasts. However, separating the effects of climate from other effects presents a tremendous scientific challenge. Can we use climate and weather forecasts to predict infectious disease outbreaks? Can the field of public health advance from "surveillance and response" to "prediction and prevention?" And perhaps the most important question of all: Can we predict how global warming will affect the emergence and transmission of infectious disease agents around the world? Under the Weather evaluates our current understanding of the linkages among climate, ecosystems, and infectious disease; it then goes a step further and outlines the research needed to improve our understanding of these linkages. The book also examines the potential for using climate forecasts and ecological observations to help predict infectious disease outbreaks, identifies the necessary components for an epidemic early warning system, and reviews lessons learned from the use of climate forecasts in other realms of human activity.

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

A major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.

This contributed volume contains 25 chapters from leading international scientists working on dengue and Zika viruses, who came together in Praia do Tofo in Mozambique to discuss the latest developments in the fields of epidemiology, pathogenesis, structural virology, immunology, antiviral drug discovery and development, vaccine efficacy, and mosquito control programs. The meeting venue offered an opportunity to discuss current research on these flaviviruses in an idyllic setting, and also to develop first-hand appreciation of the issues in infectious diseases facing developing countries and of the research gaps in Africa. For readers, who should include basic and clinical researchers in the field and public health professionals, the chapters are organized to provide a comprehensive overview of the various topics in current dengue and Zika virus research. A unique feature of the proceedings of this meeting is the inclusion of the discussions that took place following presentations. These have been transcribed and appended to the end of the relevant chapters, and they form the “salt in the soup” of this book.

This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.

Thoroughly reviews our current understanding of malarial biology Explores the subject with insights from post-genomic technologies Looks broadly at the disease, vectors of infection, and treatment and prevention strategies A timely publication with chapters written by global researchers leaders