ABSTRACT
A family follows traditional burial practices and washes the corpse of a deceased parent; a woman displaced by an earthquake collects water from a stream; a businessman returns home and is admitted to a shared hospital room and is visited by his children. Within 24–48 hours these people are seriously ill or dying, a consequence of microscopic bacterial or viral organisms that cause diseases. Within a week their community experiences rapid infections, and within months an outbreak begins to overwhelm a city, a region, a country. Such epidemics begin with seemingly inconsequential actions as illustrated in the Ebola virus disease (EVD), cholera in Haiti outbreak, and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) emergencies in the last few years. Epidemics of diseases that are new or evolved, or highly fatal, can decimate rural communities by killing or disabling working adults or vulnerable groups like children. Emerging infectious disease (EID) and even centuries old virulent strains of illnesses can cripple urban centers of commerce, trade, and government. Increasingly porous borders have transformed the world into a global community, which means that the burden of disease is no longer confined to one geographical region, but is now a burden borne by all.
