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UN Chronicle E-Alert: Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases United Nations in a united world.
Disease will continue to be with us in the 21st century. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) reminds us, once again, that unexpected transmissions or mutations of known viruses suddenly give rise to new deadly diseases that threaten communities worldwide. The rapid response of the World Health Organization and the global health community has so far prevented SARS from becoming an even greater global health threat, and there is some hope that it can be contained. This is perhaps the greatest lesson learned from our experience with another virus that first emerged
some 22 years ago and now threatens virtually every community all over the world: the HIV virus (see our earlier E-Alert on HIV/AIDS). But "old" diseases persist, and in some cases have re-emerged or grown increasingly resistant to conventional treatment.
In this first of two UN Chronicle E-Alerts devoted to diseases and their threat to global health security, we present not only an article on SARS, which will feature in our upcoming issue (2, 2003) of our print edition, but also a selection of our past coverage on various diseases that pose a global health threat, such as ebola, malaria and tuberculosis.
In our next E-Alert, we will focus on efforts to combat these global health threats.
PART 1 - EMERGING AND RE-EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES
Issue 2, 2003
· http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/issue2/0203p15.html">SARS: A New Global Health Threat"
by Erika Reinhardt, for the UN Chronicle
Issue 4, 2002
· http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2002/issue4/0402p42.html">Halting and Beginning to Reverse the Incidence of Maleria...
· http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/1999/issue1/0199p19.htm">Malaria, in Second Place, Sees Fewer Victims, But Greater Difficulty of Control"
The UN Chronicle is published quarterly in http://www.un.org/chronicle/">English and http://www.un.org/french/pubs/chronique/">French by the Department of Public Information. Editions
in Arabic, Chinese Russian and Spanish are co-published externally. It is not an official record;
the views expressed in individual articles do not necessarily imply official endorsement or
acceptance by the United Nations.
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