infectious diseases

EMERGING infectious diseases are those whose incidence in humans has increased during

the last two decades or which threatens to increase in the near future. The term also refers to newly-appearing infectious diseases, or diseases that are spreading to new geographical areas - such as cholera in South America and yellow fever in Kenya. It refers also to diseases that were easily controlled by chemotherapy and antibiotics, but which have developed anti-microbial resistance.

The diseases in question involve all the major modes of transmission - they are spread either from person to person, by insects or animals, or through contaminated water or food.

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The most dramatic example of a new disease is AIDS, caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The existence of the virus was unknown until 15 years ago, but it has since then infected an estimated 24 million adults worldwide, and that number could grow to a cumulative total of 40 million by the year 2000.

The origins of HIV are unknown, but it is related to viruses which cause AIDS-like illness in monkeys. Microorganisms constantly undergo changes that enable them to cope with an increasingly hostile environment in their hosts. For example, HIV exploits weaknesses in the host's defences by damaging the human immune system, thereby allowing other 'opportunistic' infections to take advantage.

A new breed of deadly haemorrhagic fevers, of which Ebola is the most notorious, has struck in Africa, Asia, the United States and Latin America. Ebola appeared for the first time in Zaire and Sudan in 1976; it has since struck in Cote d'Ivoire in 1994 and 1995, Liberia in 1995 and again in Zaire in 1995, where it was fatal in 77% of cases. The natural carrier of the Ebola virus - presumably an animal - has not been identified.

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infectious diseases

By: Fawad Zeb

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