IECID 2020 is the third meeting in the series and builds upon two previous and highly successful meetings in 2015 and 2017. The conference provides a forum for showcasing current research and findings in the field, as well as for identifying future research challenges and highlighting the inter-disciplinary approaches needed to meet them.
Environmental (including climate) variations are linked to the (re)emergence and changes in the distribution and epidemic potential of several important infectious diseases. In some cases, the links are relatively straightforward, involving the exposure of naïve populations of humans and other biological taxa to unfamiliar pathogens. In other cases, relationships are confounded, such as by the movements of people, by ecological disturbance, by drugs resistance or by weakened immunity, for example due to co-infection and/or malnutrition. These increasingly significant health challenges are driving innovative responses involving emerging technologies as well as new approaches, systems and inter-disciplinary partnerships, in the process opening-up new avenues for research and effective preventative, diagnostic and mitigation measures.