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Emerging Diseases
Published in Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell, Living with the Earth, 2018
Gary S. Moore, Kathleen A. Bell
New infections are emerging and old ones are expanding their geographical range faster than we can deploy resources to stop the organisms responsible. International travel and commerce are increasing and technology is rapidly changing the conditions that increase the risk of exposure to infectious agents. The spectrum of infectious disease is changing quickly in conjunction with dramatic societal and environmental changes. Worldwide, explosive population growth in developing nations, with expanding poverty and urban migration, are contributing to proliferation of both new and old infectious diseases. At the turn of the century only 5% of the population lived in cities but by the year 2025 it is estimated that this will increase to 65%. Therefore, more and more microbes will migrate from rural areas to urban areas.32 Once expected to be eliminated as a public health problem, infectious diseases remain the leading cause of death and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Some of these diseases may be new to the human species. Others may simply have never been seen in North America before. The term “emerging infectious diseases” is now being applied to this phenomenon, and awareness of these emerging diseases has reached international levels. The term “emerging infectious diseases” refers to diseases of infectious origin whose incidence in humans has either increased within the past two decades or threatens to increase in the near future.32
How Aotearoa New Zealand rapidly revised its Covid-19 response strategy: lessons for the next pandemic plan
Published in Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2021
Amanda Kvalsvig, Michael G. Baker
There are multiple measurement challenges for early assessment of the evidence (Kvalsvig, Telfar Barnard, et al. 2020). Emerging infectious diseases are by definition not fully characterised and may be rapidly evolving (as observed with the not unexpected emergence of more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 late in 2020 (Lauring and Hodcraft 2021)). There is a need to apply the precautionary principle when risks are not fully understood. One conclusion from reviewing the Covid-19 responses of multiple nations during 2020 is that ‘elimination might be the preferred strategy for responding to new emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential and moderate to high severity, particularly while key parameters are being estimated’ (Baker, Wilson, and Blakely 2020).