ABSTRACT
The nature of diseases is changing.1 Between 1976 and 1999, the World Health Organisation identified that 222 newly emerging diseases and pathogens had been found worldwide.3 Virulent, currently untreatable, viral and infectious diseases are becoming increasingly rampant in Western hospitals.4 The overuse and abuse of antimicrobial agents5 had produced mutated and new organisms resistant to the effects of the very drugs hailed as bringing the end to infectious disease.6 Old diseases, thought to be under
1 This comment relates not only to the scope and nature of infectious diseases, but also to the biological properties of some pathogens. See, eg, the discussion of the pathophysiology and epidemiology of the meningococcus bacterium in Cartwright, K, Meningococcal Disease, 1995, New York: Wiley. There is a massive amount of information on infectious diseases available on the internet. Useful sites include: https://www.cdc.gov; https://www.cdc.gov; https://www.phls.co.uk; https://www.phls.co.uk; https://www.eurosurv.org.
