Publication:

Pandemocene: a review

The history of humans has been divided into epochs, which are characterized by the prevalence of comparable conditions and are named based on their direct or indirect interactions with their environments. It is widely recognized that we are currently in the Anthropecene epoch. Infectious diseases have impacted humans in a different extent throughout its history. The numbers of viral infection pandemics in three quarter-century clusters (25 years each) formed from 1950 to the present day were compared by examining data figures from the literature. The source of the data is obtained entirely from the published articles relating the subject. The frequency of infectious disease pandemics has increased significantly in recent decades. Roughly speaking, there is an interaction between human population density, human activities and the impact of infection outbreaks. This increase in the frequency of pandemics may be associated with the increase in population density as well as the negative impact of humans on the environment. It may be appropriate to coin this most recent epoch as Pandemocene.