- Emerging infectious disease
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An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased in the past 20 years and threatens to increase in the near future. Emerging infections account for at least 12% of all human pathogens[1]. EIDs include diseases caused by a newly identified microorganism or newly identified strain of a known microorganism (e.g. SARS, AIDS);[2] new infections resulting from change or evolution of an existing organism (e.g. influenza), a known infection which spreads to a new geographic area or population (e.g. West Nile virus), newly recognized infection in an area undergoing ecologic transformation (e.g. Lyme disease), and pre-existing and recognized infections reemerging due to drug resistance of their agent or to a breakdown in public health (e.g. tuberculosis). Also of growing concern is adverse synergetic interaction among emerging diseases as well as interaction with other infectious and non-infectious conditions that leads to the development of novel syndemics.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal Emerging Infectious Diseases is dedicated to EIDs.
Mechanisms of emergence and reemergence
- Microbial adaption; e.g. genetic drift and genetic shift in Influenza A
- Changing human susceptibility; e.g. mass immunocompromisation with HIV/AIDS
- Climate and weather; e.g. diseases with zoonotic vectors such as West Nile Disease (transmitted by mosquitoes) are moving further from the tropics as the climate warms
- Change in human demographics and trade; e.g. rapid travel enabled SARS to rapidly propagate around the globe
- Economic development; e.g. use of antibiotics to increase meat yield of farmed cows leads to antibiotic resistance
- Breakdown of public health; e.g. the current situation in Zimbabwe
- Poverty and social inequality; e.g. tuberculosis is primarily a problem in low-income areas
- War and famine
- Bioterrorism; e.g. 2001 Anthrax attacks
- Dam and irrigation system construction; e.g. malaria and other mosquito borne diseases
References
- ^ Taylor, L. et al. (2001). Risk factors for human disease emergence Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 356(1411):983-9.
- ^ Fauci AS (2005). "Emerging and reemerging infectious diseases: the perpetual challenge". Academic Medicine 80 (12): 1079–85. PMID 16306276.
External links
- Emerging Diseases in a changing European eNvironment (EDEN)- Integrated Project of the European Commission
- Lashley FR (2004). "Emerging infectious diseases: vulnerabilities, contributing factors and approaches". Expert review of anti-infective therapy 2 (2): 299–316. doi:10.1586/14787210.2.2.299. PMID 15482195.
- Singer MC, Erickson PI, Badiane L, Diaz R, Ortiz D, Abraham T, Nicolaysen AM (2006). "Syndemics, sex and the city: understanding sexually transmitted diseases in social and cultural context". Social Science & Medicine 63 (8): 2010–2021. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.05.012. PMID 16782250.
- Koh, Y, Hegney, D., Drury V. (2010). A comprehensive systematic review of the nurses’ perceptions of risk from exposure to emerging acute respiratory infectious diseases and the effectiveness of strategies used to facilitate healthy coping in acute hospital and community health care settings. JBI Library of Systematic Reviews. 8 (23): 917-971.
- Laegreid, W.W.,Impacts of Emerging Infectious Disease Research on International Security Policy, ACDIS International Security Policy Brief no. 1 (April 2008), Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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