ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION: MICROORGANISMS AND SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Introduction: The term disease refers to the conditions that impair normal tissue functioning. However, there are fundamental different causes of each of these diseases. Invasion of microorganisms (pathogens) such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, helminths, prions leads to an infectious disease.

Methods: A variety of models has been developed to simulate the climatic changes and predict future disease outbreaks which include studies such as identifying unusually high incidence of a particular disease through the use of time-series analysis, geographic information systems, and spatial analysis for example, have proved useful in studying diseases emerging, and also determining disease reservoir and mode of transmission.

Results: Occurrence of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases is due to ecological changes and climate-disease associations. Many studies demonstrate seasonal fluctuations in infectious diseases but few have documented long-term trends in climate-disease associations.

Conclusion: Increase in active global disease surveillance, continuation of epidemiological research into associations between climatic factors and infectious diseases, further development of comprehensive models, improvements in public health infrastructure are easier measures to track infectious diseases in order to control environmental pollutions.