The relationships between forests, deforestation and infectious disease emergence
Published Date: 5/27/2020
Source: phys.org
The global COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the importance of certain previously little-studied scientific areas such as the relationships between ecosystems, their biodiversity and the emergence of new infectious diseases. Humans are making increasing use of their environment and so they are more exposed to certain microbes lurking in the shadows, a situation that may heighten the risk of new types of infection. Researchers from INRAE, CIRAD, IRD and the Pasteur Institute of French Guyana recently published in Environmental Research Letters a systematic literature review, using bibliometrics, of some 565 papers published between 1953 and 2018 on the relationships between forests, deforestation and emerging infectious diseases and noted just how scarce information on this major issue is.