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Volume 2, Number 4—October 1996
Perspective

Guarding Against the Most Dangerous Emerging Pathogens: Insights from Evolutionary Biology

Paul W. EwaldComments to Author 
Author affiliation: Department of Biology, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

Main Article

Table 1

Categories of pathogens that pose threats of being stably harmful in human populations because of reduced dependence on host mobility

Characteristics allowing transmission from immobile hosts
 Association with lethality
 Reference
arthropod-borne transmission lethality higher among arthopod-borne pathogens than among directly transmitted pathogens (16)
water-borne transmission lethality of diarrheal bacteria correlated with tendencies for waterborne transmission (42)
attendant-borne transmission lethality of E. coli correlated with duration of attendant-borne cycling (20, 41)
durability in the external environment
 lethality of respiratory-tract pathogens correlated with durability
 *
* B. A. Walther and P. W. Ewald, unpublished manuscript

Main Article

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