title: Infectious diseases and their outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: biodiversity and its regulation loss matter.
abstract: Despite increasing control measures, numerous parasitic and infectious diseases are emerging, re-emerging or causing recurrent outbreaks particularly in Asia and the Pacific region, a hot spot of both infectious disease emergence and biodiversity at risk. We investigate how biodiversity affects the distribution of infectious diseases and their outbreaks in this region, taking into account socio-economics (population size, GDP, public health expenditure), geography (latitude and nation size), climate (precipitation, temperature) and biodiversity (bird and mammal species richness, forest cover, mammal and bird species at threat). We show, among countries, that the overall richness of infectious diseases is positively correlated with the richness of birds and mammals, but the number of zoonotic disease outbreaks is positively correlated with the number of threatened mammal and bird species and the number of vector-borne disease outbreaks is negatively correlated with forest cover. These results suggest that, among countries, biodiversity is a source of pathogens, but also that the loss of biodiversity or its regulation, as measured by forest cover or threatened species, seems to be associated with an increase in zoonotic and vector-borne disease outbreaks.
authors.affiliation: Unité de Recherche Animal et Gestion Intégrée des Risques (AGIRs), La Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement/Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), Montpellier, France ; Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution (ISEM), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Université Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France ; Department of Helminthology, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morand
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand ; Center of Excellence on Agricultural Biotechnology, AG-BIO/PERDO-CHE (PERDO/2555-01), Pathum Thani, Thailand.
authors.forename: Sathaporn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jittapalapong
authors.affiliation: Siriraj Hospital, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Yupin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suputtamongkol
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mohd Tajuddin
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Abdullah
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Tan Boon
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Huan
mesh_terms: D001208:Asia / Q000453:epidemiology; D044822:Biodiversity; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D011156:Population Density; D013696:Temperature; D014197:Trees