Industrial
activities have produced profound changes in the natural environment,
including the mass removal of trees, fragmentation of habitats, and
creation of larval mosquito breeding sites, that have allowed the
vectors of disease pathogens to thrive. We conducted a review of the
literature to assess the impact of industrial activities on
vector-borne disease
transmission. Our study shows that industrial activities may be coupled
with significant changes to human demographics that can potentially
increase contact between pathogens, vectors and hosts, and produce a
shift of parasites and susceptible populations between low and high disease endemic
areas. Indeed, where vector-borne diseases and industrial activities
intersect, large numbers of potentially immunologically naïve people may
be exposed to infection and lack the knowledge and means to protect
themselves from infection. Such areas are typically associated with
inadequate access to quality health care, thus allowing industrial
development and production sites to become important foci of
transmission. The altered local vector ecologies, and the changes in
disease dynamics that changes affect, create challenges for
under-resourced health care and vector-control systems.
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