Pestilence and famine: Continuing down the vicious cycle with COVID-19

Despite the fact that we produce enough food to feed everyone on Earth, world hunger is on the rise. On the other side of the table, the obesity crisis also weighs heavily. Malnutrition is less about food than about socioeconomic factors such as conflict, poverty, and global disasters such as climat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS pathogens 2022-10, Vol.18 (10), p.e1010810
Main Authors: Hyder, Sudipta, Chhem, Rethy K, Claes, Filip, Karlsson, Erik Albert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Africa
Asia
Biology and Life Sciences
Climate change
Complex systems
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Epidemics
Famine
Food
Forecasts and trends
Humans
Hunger
Infectious diseases
Influence
Malnutrition
Malnutrition - epidemiology
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mutation
Nutrition
Opinion
Pandemics
Pandemics - prevention & control
Poverty
Public health
Social factors
Socioeconomic factors
Socioeconomics
Undernutrition
Vaccine efficacy
Vaccines
Viral diseases
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Summary:Despite the fact that we produce enough food to feed everyone on Earth, world hunger is on the rise. On the other side of the table, the obesity crisis also weighs heavily. Malnutrition is less about food than about socioeconomic factors such as conflict, poverty, and global disasters such as climate change and the novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Nutrition and infectious disease exist in an intricate dance. Adequate and balanced nutrition is critical for appropriate response to infection and any changes in the balance can serve as a tipping point for the next pandemic. On the other hand, pandemics, such as COVID-19, lead to greater malnutrition. Both over- and undernutrition increase severity of disease, alter vaccine effectiveness, and potentially create conditions for viral mutation and adaptation-further driving the disease and famine vicious cycle. These long-term health and socioeconomic repercussions have direct effects at individual and global levels and lead to long-term consequences. Therefore, investing in and strengthening public health, pandemic prevention, and nutrition programs become vital at a much more complex systems level.
ISSN:1553-7374
1553-7366
1553-7374
DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1010810