The Dominant Animal by Paul R. Ehrlich & Anne H. Ehrlich

Author:Paul R. Ehrlich & Anne H. Ehrlich
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781597264600
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2012-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

DENSITY AND DISEASE

One final way in which the size of the human population influences its fate is in its contribution to our vulnerability to epidemic disease, what is sometimes referred to as the decay of our epidemiological environment. Scientists are very concerned as a growing, ever denser human population, containing hundreds of millions of undernourished and thus immune-compromised people, is pushed into closer contact with animal reservoirs of infectious diseases. Such contacts greatly increase the chances of epidemics of novel diseases occurring, such as that of the largest modern novel epidemic, HIV/AIDS. The epidemic of AIDS, transferred from African apes, has caused untold human suffering; in Kenya alone in 2006, there were nearly a million AIDS orphans in a population of 35 million people. By 2007 some 33 million people worldwide were infected with HIV/AIDS, and nearly 20 million had died from it. In the absence of treatment, tens of millions more will die prematurely. No cure exists as yet, and treatment is expensive. Thus millions in poor nations who are infected, if they have even been diagnosed, may never receive help in spite of recently expanded efforts to provide it.

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