FAISALABAD: Predictive modeling, a method which analyses pest behavior, the impact of climate change and future challenges, can help increase agrarian productivity and fight diseases such as the dengue virus, speakers at a seminar said on Friday. The seminar was organised by the University of Agriculture Department of Agri-entomology and chaired by Faculty of Agriculture Dean Professor Dr Muhammad Ashfaq. Australian Scientist Dr Alice Hughes was chief guest.They said research can help us predict the behaviour of pests and possible disease outbreaks. “The model factors for climate change, rain forecasts and other ecological factors to let us decide how fight crop disease and medical disease before an outbreak begins,” they said. They said immunity to viral diseases had been decreasing due to changing patterns of life. The first dengue case had been reported in 1994 in a forest but the cutting of forests and climatic change allowed dengue to move to cities.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2012.
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