Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases are infections that have recently appeared within a population or those whose incidence or geographic range is rapidly increasing or threatens to increase in the near future. Emerging infections can be caused by previously undetected or unknown infectious agents, known agents that have spread to new geographic locations or new populations, previously known agents whose role in specific diseases has previously gone unrecognized.  Re-emergence of agents whose incidence of disease had significantly declined in the past, but whose incidence of disease has reappeared. This class of diseases is known as re-emerging infectious diseases.

• Severe acute respiratory syndrome
• Influenza
• West Nile fever
• Smallpox and other pox viruses
• Hepatitis