Infectious Diseases

A disaster results from the complex interaction between and combination of factors and development processes that generate conditions that create vulnerability to a hazard depending on the exposure. Vulnerability depends on the combination of economic, social, governmental, healthcare, technological resources and measures of mitigating the impact of the extreme external shock, i.e. a pandemic. If the vulnerability exists (no or limited economic, healthcare, technological, etc. resources), being exposed (spatially and temporally) to a given hazard, and the fact of not being able to address the consequences of the extreme external shock is a disaster. Rapid and uncontrolled urbanization as well as global population growth, for example, can contribute to the (re-)appearance and facilitate the spread infectious diseases, since humans and animals are living in closer proximity to each other.