Ecological Studies of Diseases: Promise and Praxis

Excerpt

In the late 1960s, a number of prominent public health experts predicted the end of infectious diseases as a serious threat to mankind. Their optimism was based on successes from recently developed antimicrobial drugs, vaccines, and with infection control measures like improved public sanitation and regulating the food supply. Unfortunately, their hopeful forecast was short-lived. Soon there were epidemics caused by newly identified human pathogens, like Legionella and Ebola virus, and resurgent old ones like tuberculosis and malaria, often in forms resistant to previously effective antimicrobial drugs. The most catastrophic pathogen has been HIV-1, the major human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. In approximately 25 years, it has spread throughout the world to infect more than 70 million people and cause approximately 35 million deaths. AIDS is now the fourth leading cause of death worldwide and accounts for about 25% of recent deaths in Africa (Kanki and Essex 2004). …