Jamie Childs, ScD

Dr. Childs’ research focuses on zoonotic diseases, including hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), caused by a hantavirus maintained in the prairie deer mouse host, and leptospirosis, caused by leptospires maintained in the Norway rat host. Outbreaks of these diseases are driven by weather patterns and climate variation. The initial outbreak of HPS in the southwestern US followed an El Niño event that resulted in increased rainfall and an unusually warm winter. These conditions facilitated deer mouse survival and earlier vegetation growth, producing an exceptionally large mouse population. The increased potential for human-rodent contact drove the epidemic and subsequent studies demonstrated the predictive value of weather conditions for estimating the magnitude and geographic range of HPS outbreaks. Leptospires are shed in rat urine. Predictable outbreaks in tropical urban slums, such as in Salvador, Brazil, occur each year during the rainy season when people are exposed to contaminated water and mud. Additionally, severe weather events causing flooding are linked to epidemics of leptospirosis in tropical locations. Climate change, potentially resulting in increased frequency of severe weather events, will lead to marked changes, in currently unpredictable ways, in the epidemiology of these zoonotic diseases.