The world health watchdogs are looking in the wrong places for the next dangerous epidemics, according to an analysis of global

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问题      The world health watchdogs are looking in the wrong places for the next dangerous epidemics, according to an analysis of global trends in emerging disease outbreaks over the past few decades.
     The study gives a fresh perspective on global disease by tracking the history, from 1940 to 2004, of the emergence and spread of 335 infectious diseases. The extensive work helps to quantify the effect of well-known risk factors, such as population density, on the probability of a disease taking hold in a given area.
     Although the data haven’t yet been used to map out specific future hotspots for disease, they do suggest that watchdog groups should invest more in monitoring regions such as tropical Africa, Latin America and Asia. These areas have the greatest threats of newly emerging epidemics, say the survey’s authors, but they have traditionally received the least surveillance.
     A globally coordinated strategy is required to spot and stop outbreaks before they can spread across the world, argues Kate Jones of the Institute of Zoology in London, one of the researchers behind the new report.
     "We need to think more broadly, with a global vision." she says, "Everyone will be affected by new disease outbreaks. We are all on the same planet--there’s nowhere to hide."
     Jones and her colleagues tracked the infectious diseases over a 64-year span. They included many diseases that have gone on to cause worldwide misery. The survey paints a picture in which new diseases arise as a result of dramatic increases in human population density, international trade and travel, and changes to agricultural practices.
     Such changes have caused a dramatic increase in the rate at which new diseases have emerged since the 1940s, the researchers say. During the 1980s alone, the worst decade in their date set, almost 100 new pathogens emerged.
     That is probably due to the ravages of the most notorious pathogen(病原体,致病菌) to appear in the 1980s--HIV--the researchers note.
     HIV, like 60% of the diseases studies by the researchers, is a zoonotic(动物传染病的) pathogen-it leapt from animals to humans. Of these zoonotic diseases, 72% came from wildlife as opposed to domesticated animals, the researchers found. Recent examples include Nipah virus in Malaysia, and the infamous SARS outbreak in Guangdong, China, which practically shut down international travel in Southeast Asia in 2002.
According to the survey made by Jones and her colleagues, new diseases arise as a result of dramatic increases in population, international trade and travel, and ________.

选项

答案changes to agricultural practices

解析 本题问的是导致新疾病出现的原因。题干中已经列出了人口密度、国际贸易和旅行的急剧增加等因素,根据原文句子可以看出需要填的是导致新疾病出现的原因之一。题干和原句的句子结构一致,答案显而易见,是农业活动的改变,即changes to agricultural practices。
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