Emerging Infectious Diseases:
What If?
by
Robert G. Whalen
Directeur de Recherche Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique Collège de France 11, Place Marcelin Berthelot
75231 Paris cedex 5, France E-mail: whalen@pasteur.fr URL:
http://www.genweb.com/Dnavax/dnav
ax.html Tel: +33-1-44.27.13.13; Fax: +33-1-44.27.13.13
"But there is no single problem that is more pressing than our
fast-deteriorating relations with the microbial world." So wrote
Barbara Culliton (1), the Editor-in-Chief of Nature Medicine, at the
end of 1995. This stark statement served to emphasize the conclusion
to her comments on the re-emergence of cholera and plague, the
growing number of cases of Lyme disease, and humanity's occasional
but frenetic duels with Ebola virus. What if one day an
Ebola-infected individual makes it to the boarding lounge and embarks
on an airplane? As pointed out by David Heymann, WHO's director of
the new division of emerging disease, this will surely result in the
spread of the virus to far corners of the world (2) with the obvious
and dramatic consequences that one can imagine. And, unhappily, it is
almost a commonplace to evoke the ravages of the AIDS virus, whose
spread could easily be diminished by changes in human behavior,
although a vaccine is clearly indicated however the basis for one has
not yet been clearly delineated.
More To Come...
To the Front Page of the Web Inquirer
->
<-
Click to return to the Library Entrance.
To Contact Jani Roberts