The impact of climatic disasters on the type and intensity of interactionsbetween humans and wildlife. Epidemiologic consequences.

Short duration climatic disasters are widely seen as Favorable for the init iation of epidemic phenomenons. Wild animals are then supposed to be involv ed. Lacking any confirmed data leading to a true appreciation of its import ance, we choose here a theoretical approach of the modifications induced by these meteorological phenomenons on wildlife, and on the importance of int eractions between three different compartments (wildlife, domestic stock, h umans), at different organization levels of life (ecosystem, population and community individual), to be in order to argue a proposition of hierarchy between wild mammals taxa in terms of epidemic risk. (C) 1999 Elsevier; Par is.