The infectious disease challenges of our time

Infectious diseases form one of the great-est global challenges in medicine in our time. Ever since the famous, wrong pre-diction of the Surgeon General of the United States, William H. Stewart, in 1969: “We can close the books on infec-tious diseases, ” infectious diseases have been on the rise. A large number of new infectious diseases emerged: major threats to the world like AIDS and SARS, but also less threatening infections, like those caused by Campylobacter spp, Borrelia spp, Bartonella henselae, Clostridium dif-ficile, Hanta viruses. These have led to major changes in clinical practice, micro