The Future of Disease Epidemics

The University of Sydney's professor Eddie Holmes is encouraging Australia to take up US-style centres for disease control, after warning that the number of disease epidemics will rise in the future.

Professor Holmes, who did his doctorate on the evolution of human populations at the University of California, said that despite advancements in our ability to identify and fight infectious disease outbreaks, we should expect there to be new epidemics and an increasing number of them as the human population continues to grow and become better connected.

"When humans made the shift from hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society they created the first big opportunity for the rise and spread of infectious diseases in humans," Professor Holmes said.

"As we settled in large villages and began living closely with farming animals we optimised the conditions for viruses and bacteria to move from animals to humans ... Fast forward to the 21st century, with its megacities, factory-farmed animals, and millions of people jetting around the world daily and nowhere is safe - not even a relatively isolated place like Australia."

Professor Holmes, whose research has included looking at HIV, Hepatitis B and C, yellow fever, dengue, rabies, bat lyssaviruses and influenza in both humans animals, said we are vulnerable to viruses from other mammals because we have similar cells: "Whether a virus can jump species depends on the interplay between ecology and genetics," he said.

Global surveillance and a response network with rapid access to shared data, organised national response protocols, and the ability to rapidly coordinate and deploy infection control resources will provide the best option to protect against a pandemic, the professor said.

A talk with Professor Holmes will take place at University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre Auditorium for the 21st Century Medicine Series between 6.00pm-7.30pm on September 17