Questions arising from the Vector-Borne and Water-Related Disease Workshop, Wilson Center, 5/17/18

This all-day workshop covered a lot of ground of the very busy disease specialists who presented papers at the workshop.  I came to realize the complexity of their problem in knowing how to respond when an air-borne disease encircles a region in some area likely to give rise to an epidemic of wide-scale proportions if steps aren't taken to ameliorate the severity of the contagion and deal with the germ or bacteria-laden environment nurturing it. "It's a very complicated situation that can become explosive at the genetic level," Chuck warned.

Professor Rita Colwell seemed to argue for getting the basics covered through exhaustive elimination of hot spots where climate changes mean an increase in a myriad of diseases.  While those hot spots are being tackled, it would seem appropriate to shift the population to somewhere more conducive to human life.  Simply, one could at least urge the citizenry to leave the area of contaminated water until wastewater has been sufficiently cleansed into safe water through filtration, isolating along the way pathogens in the water and predicting where the epidemic is to go on land.

One recalls how Panama had to reclaim its damp rain forests with their sludge-ponds through projects of land utilization formerly diseased-ridden.  We move people when there's civil strife; why not when there's disease-bearing environments in damp, humid regions of any country?  Importantly, when science identifies a region as pathogen-carrying, scientists should get the inhabitants out until the area has been scrubbed and de-humidified.  The use of drones should enable a shorter time length for declaring a region free of disease-carrying pathogens and declaring it more moderate in temperature ranges.

To my mind, it is unjustifiable to permit human beings to populate the infested Amazon forests and rivers, where disease runs rampant and water quality seems of low concern, and while air temperatures reach ever-higher levels. The same evaluation may also apply to Yemen and Bangladesh, not to forget parts of India along the Ganges, polluted by human detritus.

The point is, certain areas of the world are uninhabitable by our species due to the likelihood of genetic and environmental factors attacking disease-susceptible human tissue and organs; and these areas should be declared off-limits until their environments are treated by cleansing agents.  It took time, but the Great Lakes in the United States has become much cleaner and less infested with pathogens.  The list of successes is long!