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Changing Viral Epidemiology: the future‐ (re)emerging infections
• Emerging infections are infections that are rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range17
• Including such previously unrecognized diseases as HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Nipah virus encephalitis, arboviruses (ZIKV, chickungunya) & flaviviruses (West Nile, DEN)
Changing Viral Epidemiology: the future‐ (re)emerging infections: Ebola18,19,20
• On March 23, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the forested rural region of southeastern Guinea. The identification of these early cases marked the beginning of the West Africa Ebola epidemic, the largest in history.
• EVD spread to seven more countries: Italy, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Later secondary infection, mainly in a healthcare setting, occurred in Italy, Mali, Nigeria, and the United States.
• Two and a half years after the first case was discovered, the outbreak ended with more than 28,600 cases and 11,325 deaths. The scope of this outbreak, both in terms of cases and geography, can be attributed to the unprecedented circulation of EVD into crowded urban areas, increased mobilization across borders, and conflicts between key infection control practices and prevailing cultural and traditional practices in West Africa.
• Engaging local leaders in prevention programs and messaging, along with careful policy implementation at the national and global level, helped to eventually contain the spread of the virus and put an end to this outbreak.
• There is a significant chance that an epidemic of a substantially more infectious disease will occur sometime in the next 20 years; after all, we saw major epidemics during the 20th century, including the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918–1919 and the ongoing pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus.
• In fact, of all the things that could kill more than 10 million people around the world, the most likely is an epidemic stemming from either natural causes or bioterrorism.
• The problem is not the fault of any single institution — it reflects a global failure. The world needs a global warning and response system for outbreaks.
• World Bank projections give a sense of the cost of inaction: a worldwide influenza epidemic, for example, would reduce global wealth by an estimated $3 trillion.
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