The Origin of Plagues : A Research Agenda for the 21st Century

Viruses, bacteria, and parasites emerge in both new and old forms to cause epidemics. Old microbes can produce new epidemics because of changes in the life style (including increased international travel) of people and societies. But epidemics occur also as a consequence of new genetic variations in microbes. These various epidemics connect the future with the past, offering lessons for guarding the health of generations to come-lessons learned from diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The public must be vigilant to the possibility of new epidemics. The research agenda for the 21st Century is to learn more about the biology and epidemiology of microbes, and strengthen the worldwide systems of surveillance and detection