Emerging Diseases Remain a Global Concern

Emerging Diseases
Posted May 1, 2007
Emerging diseases remain a global concern
Infectious diseases are responsible for 26% of mortality worldwide.
Submit a Comment Email Print SAN DIEGO — Global emergence and re-emergence of diseases remain a challenge because of the microbes’ abilities to replicate and mutate, according to Anthony S. Fauci, MD.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, described three types of disease challenges: emerging, which he said includes HIV and severe acute respiratory disease (SARS); re-emerging and resurging, which includes West Nile virus in the United States; and deliberately emerging, which includes bioterrorism, such as the anthrax attacks that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Recently, researchers addressing the threat of emerging and re-emerging diseases have been at a slight advantage due to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and genomics, Fauci said. Research must continue to prevent the emergence of these microbes, he said.

“Evolution is not on our side. What do we have? We have intellect and will, and we have public health measures and biomedical research,” Fauci said.

Fauci presented the keynote address at the 2007 American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Annual Meeting held here.

Global threat

Anthony S. FauciIn 1963, Ivan Cockburn declared victory and stated that the world will be free of infectious disease threats in the foreseeable future. In 1968, the U.S. Surgeon General urged the medical community to turn its focus away from infectious diseases and focus on chronic diseases, such as heart disease.

“Not only did they not understand the inherent nature of infectious disease, but they were completely disregarding that we live in a global community,” Fauci said.

Today, infectious diseases are the second leading cause of mortality worldwide and the leading cause of mortality in people from birth to 29 years of age, according to...