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Rural-to-Urban Transition May Explain Viral Outbreaks: Vietnam Study

VOA News

   Vietnam has a possible lesson for the world as the global community
   copes with the COVID-19 emergency --monitor the places where odds of an
   outbreak are highest. Research indicates these are not the most urban
   or the most rural areas, but rather those that are in transition.

   Scholars from the East-West Center in Hawaii based this assessment on a
   review of Vietnam's response to an avian flu outbreak in 2003. In
   researching that outbreak, the scholars found that infection rates were
   highest in areas that were in the process of urbanization, and thus had
   a mix of conditions, such as different rates of toilet access and
   diverse bird populations near national highways.

   Thus, governments may have higher odds of detecting a viral outbreak
   early and efficiently if they monitor such urbanizing areas, say James
   Spencer, Sumeet Saksena and Jefferson Fox, all senior Fellows at the
   Center, which is a nonprofit organization for research and education.

   "On a practical level, information on the link between urban
   development and disease outbreaks can help government agencies identify
   which locations are most likely to experience an outbreak of avian
   influenza so that prevention efforts can be less costly, more targeted,
   and more effective," the Fellows wrote in a joint analysis April 1 for
   the Center.

   They added, "The concepts and methodology that were developed for this
   study could easily be adapted to many other disease threats, ranging
   from SARS, Ebola, and dengue fever to the current pandemic of
   COVID-19."

   The authors were referring to a study, first done in 2017, which
   identified regions of Vietnam that were at risk of infection because as
   they urbanized, they had uneven levels of sanitation and a high chance
   of interaction between humans and animals.

   Those factors are relevant for the coronavirus in 2020 because some
   scientists believe that today's disease originated in a transmission
   from animals to humans in China, which borders Vietnam and shares its
   experience of an uneven transition to urbanization.

   Bill Gates' warning

   Philanthropist Bill Gates also discussed viruses and the rural-urban
   contrast in a TED talk that went viral for its seeming prescience. In
   2015, he examined an Ebola emergency that killed 10,000 people, mostly
   in rural areas in West Africa.

   "It didn't get into many urban areas, and that was just luck," he said.
   "If it had gotten into a lot more urban areas the case numbers would
   have been much larger. So next time we might not be so lucky."

   Expanding on the point made by Gates about Ebola, the East-West Center
   Fellows explained how Vietnam's move from rural to urban development
   affected its avian flu cases, and what that could mean as the world
   fights the coronavirus.

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