Infectious Disease: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #433

by Marta L. Wayne, Benjamin M. Bolker

As doctors and biologists have learned, to their dismay, infectious disease is a moving target: new diseases emerge every year, old diseases evolve into new forms, and ecological and socioeconomic upheavals change the transmission pathways by which disease spread. By taking an approach focused on the general evolutionary and ecological dynamics of disease, this Very Short Introduction provides a general conceptual framework for thinking about disease.
Ecology and evolution provide the keys to answering the "where," "why," "how," and "what" questions about any particular infectious disease: where did it come from? How is it transmitted from one person to another, and why are some individuals more susceptible than others? What biochemical, ecological, and evolutionary strategies can be used to combat the disease? Is it more effective to block transmission at the population level, or to block infection at the individual level? Through a series of case studies, Benjamin Bolker and Marta L. Wayne introduce the major ideas of infectious disease in a clear and thoughtful way, emphasizing the general principles of infection, the management of outbreaks, and the evolutionary and ecological approaches that are now central to much research about infectious disease.
ABOUT THE SERIES:
The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Medicine, Biology, Health, Medical, History

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narrated by Patrick Downer and borrowed from the National Library for the Blind and Print Disabled's BARD app.

This brief introduction 2017 is quite timely, providing clear backgound and explanations to issues in the headlines (even though coronaviruses are not themselves discussed.)

[Wendelle]

This book is a very informative brief introduciton to epidemiology of infectious disease, including information on nature and transmission of flu, HIV, cholera and malaria, from the perspective two biologists with a background in evolutionary ecology, who also have a detectable bizarre sense of humor

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5. This book provides a good primer to people interested in learning more about infectious disease. Authors Marta Wayne and Benjamin Bolker effectively “dumb down” complex material for a general audience, and add in a little humor to keep the material from being too dry.

Some quotes:

“Immunization for smallpox was widely practised [sic] in Africa, China, India, and Turkey by the early 18th century.” (p. 3)

“...all living organisms undergo ecological and evolutionary change, making infectious disease a moving target.” (p. 7)

Many viruses, including influenza and diarrhoea [sic] -causing viruses such as rotavirus, can survive for days in the environment, building up on particular kinds of objects known as fomites. Have you noticed a sudden increase in male physicians sporting bow ties? This fashion statement is a response to health researchers’ identification of standard ties as fomites. (p. 11)

Though not as gruesome as some viral diseases such as Ebola, the flu virus has caused more deaths than any single disease outbreak since the Black Death (bubonic plague) of the 14th century: twenty to fifty million people worldwide died from the 1918 Spanish Flu. (p. 31)

“Untreated, HIV infections are usually fatal within five to ten years. The proximate cause of death is usually opportunistic infection, rather than HIV per se.” (p. 41)

Cholera has played an important role in the history of epidemiology. Snow’s discovery that cholera was spread by a contagious agent, and localizing that agent to a particular water pump during a cholera outbreak in mid-19th-century London, is arguably the first case of epidemiology as systematic detective work. (p. 55-56)

A future free of infectious disease is simply unrealistic. Living things have parasitized one another since the beginning of life itself, and no amount of intervention will alter that.

New diseases will be created by mutation or recombination of existing ones and by spillover from animal populations, and existing diseases will continually evolve to escape our methods of control. What is attainable, however, is minimizing the impact of disease while understanding that it will always be with us. We can slow or stop pandemics, and we can reduce the amount of death and misery that diseases cause, even if we can never fully conquer them. (p. 100)

Title: Infectious Disease
Authors: Marta Wayne & Benjamin Bolker
Series: Oxford Very Short Introductions
Year: 2015
Genre: Nonfiction - Biology, public health
Page count: 136 pages
Date(s) read: 6/10/23-6/11/23
Reading journal entry #117 in 2023

[عمر الحمادي · Rating 4 out of 5]

رغم إن الكتاب لم يتطرق بالتفصيل لمرض سارس وميرس، إلا أنه يستطيع إعطائك فكرة جيدة عن طبيعة الأمراض المعدية التي ستبقى معنا إلى الأبد وعلينا التعايش معها عن طريق خلق دائرة الأمان لبني جنسنا.

[Flo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. Having been published in 2015 it was rather amusing to read about infectious diseases in a world where the coronavirus pandemic hadn't happened. As such, I found I was actually already familiar with some of the content, simply from watching the news over the past year. COVID aside, I learnt a lot from this book. With each chapter focusing on a different disease, by the end of the whistlestop tour I really felt like I knew quite a bit about each illness. As well as packing in some interesting scientific content, this book also highlighted some fascination ethical and social issues about global health that are particularly pertinent today. I certainly have a much deeper understanding of the pathogens that inhabit our world and how they can begin to monopolise it. Translating common sense into actual scientific explanations helped me to really understand some of the policies currently in place (eg. encounter and compatibility filters). This book has really sparked an interest in me about infectious diseases and I plan to do more reading on the subject as a result of this. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in biology or medicine, or if you just want to further understand a topic that is so relevant at the moment.

[Dr.Krishnaprasad Chaudhari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful tale of prey and predator each evolving to outrun each other using various ways. Be it evolving an effective method to surpass encounter barrier or compatibility barrier using mutations, recombinations, genetic shift or genetic drift, while prey itself evolving mechanisms to patch them up either by reducing encounter by hygiene, isolation or quarantine or decreasing compatibility of predator with the help of immune system or vaccination.
Also this book offers wonderful insight on few but important disease like cholera, hiv, malaria and how our efforts are directed in controlling them.
Overall wonderful book !

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one. There was a lot of overlap between this book and my courses in Virology and Microbiology. But there was a lot of other information that was new to me. This book is specifically about the diseases that are passable, or contagious, from one person to another. Don’t look for much on the mechanism of disease here beyond the basics, and there really is nothing on the body’s immunological defenses against disease either. That all would have been too much for such a short intro book.

[jzthompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, the decision to structure things around six extended case studies really kept things lively, and the authors two-pronged ecological/evolutionary approach meant a lot of ground was covered. I felt like I learnt a lot.

[Thammalux Chaopanon · Rating 3 out of 5]

เรื่องเกี่ยวกับการแพร่เชื้อ อ่านไมยาก แต่นึกภาพตามได้ยาก ไม่ค่อยมีข้อมูลให้เห็น ส่วนใหญ่บรรยายทางทฤษฎ๊ ทำให้ไม่เข้าใจมากนัก ยากต่อการไปต่อยอดศึกษาเพิ่มเติม และไม่สามารถเชื่อมโยง รูปแบบของ COVID ให้เข้าใจได้

[Faras_bookclub · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, it was informative but also sometimes a bit boring. But it could also be because I already know quite some things about the diseases they chose as case studies. They first explain some basics, like terms and concepts you need to understand and then go through some case studies of bacteria, viruses and parasites.

[Michael Rickard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent primer

A well-written book that gives you a surprisingly good overview of the basics of infectious diseases including how they spread.

[Tomás · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok only one more of these and then ill stop I promise

[Zac Dragan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have preferred some more breadth

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was mostly interesting, though a bit repetitive. She mentioned the eradication of rinderpest 4 times.

[Sal Leggio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty good. Skipped the chapter on amphibian diseases. It has some useful references to more detailed works.

[Chun Yi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offered me a very comprehensive understanding of infectious diseases as well as knowledge in the field of epidemiology. Key takeaways include:

(a) Basic Reproductive number, R0. An infection will die out in the long run if Ro<1 but will spread in populations when the value exceeds 1. The Influenza has a Ro of 2-3 and HIV a value of 2-5.

(b) Red Queen Hypothesis, 'It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place'. Species continuously need to change to keep up with competition. The Red Queen Hypothesis has also been used to explain the evolution of sexual reproduction. The Twofold Cost of sexual reproduction revolves around the cost of males and the cost of passing down 50% of genetic material to the next generation, which allowed asexual organism to propagate faster and overtime, one would expect genes for asexual reproduction to outcompete genes for sexual reproduction. Yet sexual reproduction still remain the dominant mode of reproduction because it confer advantages such as genetic variation.

(c) John Snow and the Cholera outbreak. During Snow's era, the Germ Theory of Disease has yet to be established and explanations about disease outbreaks were primarily based on the miasma theory. Using a dot map to document cases of cholera, Snow managed to identify that water from the Broad Street Pump, which carried sewage polluted fluids from the polluted part of the Thames as the cause of the outbreak.