Infectious diseases prevalent in humans and animals are caused by pathogens that once emerged from other animal hosts. In addition to these established infections, new infectious diseases ...periodically emerge. In extreme cases they may cause pandemics such as COVID-19; in other cases, dead-end infections or smaller epidemics result. Established diseases may also re-emerge, for example by extending geographically or by becoming more transmissible or more pathogenic. Disease emergence reflects dynamic balances and imbalances, within complex globally distributed ecosystems comprising humans, animals, pathogens, and the environment. Understanding these variables is a necessary step in controlling future devastating disease emergences.
Understanding the dynamic balance and interplay between complex and global ecosystems comprising humans, animals, pathogens, and the environment provides perspectives on how we got to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the most recent 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza are only a few of many examples of emerging infectious diseases in the modern world 1; each of ...these diseases has caused global societal and economic impact related to unexpected illnesses and deaths, as well as interference with travel, business, and many normal life activities. Examples of Newly Emerging Infectious Diseases The most salient modern example of an emerging infectious disease is HIV/AIDS, which likely emerged a century ago after multiple independent events in which the virus jumped from one primate host to another (chimpanzees to humans) and subsequently, as a result of a complex array of social and demographic factors, spread readily within the human population.
Academic interest in the concept of insight in psychosis has increased markedly over the past 30 years, prompting this selective appraisal of the current state of the art. Considerable progress has ...been made in terms of measurement and confirming a number of clinical associations. More recently, the relationship between insight and involuntary treatment has been scrutinised more closely alongside the link between decision-making capacity and insight. Advances in the clinical and cognitive neurosciences have influenced conceptual development, particularly the field of 'metacognition'. New therapies, including those that are psychologically and neurophysiologically based, are being tested as ways to enhance insight.
Background. Despite the availability of published data on 4 pandemics that have occurred over the past 120 years, there is little modern information on the causes of death associated with influenza ...pandemics. Methods. We examined relevant information from the most recent influenza pandemic that occurred during the era prior to the use of antibiotics, the 1918–1919 “Spanish flu”; pandemic. We examined lung tissue sections obtained during 58 autopsies and reviewed pathologic and bacteriologic data from 109 published autopsy series that described 8398 individual autopsy investigations. Results. The postmortem samples we examined from people who died of influenza during 1918–1919 uniformly exhibited severe changes indicative of bacterial pneumonia. Bacteriologic and histopathologic results from published autopsy series clearly and consistently implicated secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory-tract bacteria in most influenza fatalities. Conclusions. The majority of deaths in the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic likely resulted directly from secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory-tract bacteria. Less substantial data from the subsequent 1957 and 1968 pandemics are consistent with these findings. If severe pandemic influenza is largely a problem of viral-bacterial copathogenesis, pandemic planning needs to go beyond addressing the viral cause alone (e.g., influenza vaccines and antiviral drugs). Prevention, diagnosis, prophylaxis, and treatment of secondary bacterial pneumonia, as well as stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, should also be high priorities for pandemic planning.
Universal Coronavirus Vaccines - An Urgent Need Morens, David M; Taubenberger, Jeffery K; Fauci, Anthony S
New England journal of medicine/The New England journal of medicine,
01/2022, Letnik:
386, Številka:
4
Journal Article
PDF
