ABSTRACT
Among the list of health challenges associated with global climate change and environmental degradation, the ones with potentially far-reaching health consequences are emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (ERIDs). ERIDs are diseases of infectious origin that have either increased in incidence or geographic range, recently moved into new host populations, recently been discovered or are caused by newly evolved pathogens (Lederberg et al, 1992; Daszak et al, 2001). Central to the process of identifying such diseases also is the time line, for which the focus is on those that have either increased since the 1970s or threaten to increase within the near future (Morse, 1995). Table 7.1 shows the timeline of new infections that emerged between the 1970s and 1990s.Added to this list are many re-emergent diseases such as malaria, dengue, tuberculosis, yellow fever and other infections that have surfaced since the initial compilation of these records.
