Infectious Diseases

Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases (EID) are the diseases whose incidence has increased in the past 20 years and could increase in the near future. Emerging infections account for at least 12% of all human pathogens. These are caused by newly identified species or strains e.g. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, HIV/AIDS that may have evolved from a known infection like influenza or spread to a new population like West Nile fever or to an area undergoing ecologic transformation of Lyme disease or be reemerging infections, like drug resistant tuberculosis. Nosocomial is a hospital-acquired infection, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus are emerging in hospitals and extremely problematic in that they are resistant to many antibiotics. Of growing concern are adverse synergistic interactions between emerging diseases and other infectious and non-infectious conditions leading to the development of novel syndemics. Other emerging diseases are zoonotic an animal reservoir incubates the organism, with only occasional transmission into human populations.