Exploring successional infectious disease ecology among human pathogens InfectiousDiseases Ecology HumanPathogens Pathogens UTKnoxville
By Tarun Sai LomteSep 14 2022Reviewed by Aimee Molineux In a recent study published in PLoS Biology, researchers showed that life history features of pathogens help determine the age of humans when they have the highest probability of being infected with an infectious disease.
The immune system and past infections impact the habitat quality for new pathogens. The invasibility and suitability of the host environment for newly introduced pathogens will be due to 1) the immune function of an individual host shaped by past exposures to diseases and 2) the population of hosts who experienced different diseases but have their immune functions influenced in similar ways.
The six features were 1) incubation period length, 2) length of the infectious period, 3) pathogen viability outside of its host, 4) physical distance for disease transmission between hosts, 5) how often the disease is opportunistic, and 6) disease mutability. The analysis of successional theory was restricted to disease burdens in developing countries.
The authors found a significant correlation between successional scores for 30 pathogens and the specific demographic categories during the age of greatest prevalence for each disease. Moreover, the classification of age groups solely based on the successional score was also meaningful. This was consistent with the hypothesis of some successional progression in the disease ecology of the human-host-habitat.
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