Director, Center for Disaster Medical Sciences

The current attention focused on the Ebola virus outbreak is a dramatic illustration of the threat from emerging infectious diseases. The emergency health care system must be prepared for an evolving public health event of international significance such as this. Emergency physicians are on the front lines and should be knowledgeable, up-to-date, and ready to effectively manage infectious disease threats. It doesn’t matter whether such threats arise from Ebola virus disease (EVD), Enterovirus D-68, MERS-CoV, SARS, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, or the next big event, as yet unnamed. We should be leaders in our hospitals, EMS systems, and communities, advocating for protection of the public health, our patients, and colleagues. We are currently creating a new edition of the reference text Koenig and Schultz’s Disaster Medicine: Comprehensive Principles and Practices, which will be released next fall. It will include a chapter entitled Emerging Infectious Diseases: Concepts in Preparing for and Responding to the Next Microbial Threat. The chapter authors are Shantini D. Gamage, Stephen M. Kralovic, and Gary A. Roselle. Although our book is not yet finalized, we offer our emergency medicine colleagues a complimentary copy of the emerging infectious disease chapter to facilitate the education o