Global Epidemics in an Accelerating Word: Speed vs. Control?

Dear reader,

A first a short update on 'The Accelerating World: Speed vs. Control'. The book will be released this week on 3rd December on Amazon.

And now onto an interesting subject. Global diseases and, it seems, their acceleration? Indeed, do you have the feeling that global diseases are accelerating?

• Lately, Zika has been the news, having spread throughout South, Latin and Central America with physical impact on the newborn and touching up to 3 million people.
• Last year, it was Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which killed over 10K people.
• And the year before (and still) H1N1 with between 150K to 450K people touched. .
• Other diseases are also less omnipresent in the media, but such as measles. Or Aids, Aids which is now growing again in South Africa and has made since its initial spread 20 years ago over 40M dead.

Cumulative numbers of Zika cases, WHO, 2011-16

Weekly reported Ebola cases, WHO

So what is happening ? Are there more infectious or more virulent diseases?

A first explanation could be that reporting is done better. The public media and the Internet are more than ever passing on the information in faster and better ways. However, this alone fails to account for the seeming acceleration in the number and impact of global diseases. In fact, other explanations may appear:

• Urbanization and poverty - 50% of the world, nearly 3.5Bn people lives with less than 2.5$ a day. Cities are growing but sometimes poverty and high density are the drivers, and they make it much more possible that a virus spreads. Ebola for instance was particularly virulent in densely populated areas.
• Modern transportation - transport, an industry of $7.4Tr, can get anybody anywhere in few hours. 1.2Br people travel worldwide every year. This is great until the same happens for diseases as well. And the issue is further deepened through global trade of merchandise (the global container fleet is said to be 34 M TEU, TEU being the standard 20 feet ship metric, containing 10 pallets)
• Modern life - stress levels incurred in modern society and work, the impact of pollution or artificial molecules contained in food (fertilizers, etc.) or healthcare products may actually weaken human natural barriers. The same may be said for viruses that develop resistances to artificial remedies (drugs).
• Climate change - allows at times more humid and warmer conditions for certain types of diseases carriers, such as mosquitoes, etc. But not only, a special type of fungus has for instance appeared in Latin America, which kills amphibians.

The issue of spreading global diseases is a complex one. Many drivers and factors may cause diseases to appear and then spread. The feeling that more and more diseases and people are touched may be debatable. But what is for sure is that the speed at which they touch more and more people is extremely fast. Slopes on the previous charts are exponential. And the acceleration of the world, with urbanization and poverty, global tranportation, modern life and climate change among others, is likely a very significant contributor. Not many control mechanisms seem to be put in place, be it to prevent or control the apparition and spread of global diseases. But maybe they are difficult to put in place too (e.g. how do you deal with poverty as a catalyst of global disease spread?). Accelerating World: Speed vs. Control? Any thought welcome!

Emmanuel

Contact: [email protected]