New and Reemerging Diseases
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that outbreaks of diseases, including new ones, threaten the lives of millions of people. The most dramatic example is AIDS, a disease caused by a virus that was virtually unknown ten years ago. Another disease is hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, recently discovered in the southwestern United States. A completely new strain of cholera has emerged in Asia. Two types of hemorrhagic fevers have developed in South America, both fatal. Examples of outbreaks of well-known infectious diseases since 1993 include cholera in Latin America, yellow fever in Kenya, dengue in Costa Rica, and diphtheria in Russia. WHO is calling for a global network of centers to identify and combat new or reemerging diseases.
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