Travel Medicine

Emerging Infectious Diseases and Other Conditions

What are emerging infectious diseases?

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emerging infectious diseases are commonly defined as both:

those that have newly appeared in a population
those that have existed in the past, but are rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range

More specifically, as defined by the Institute of Medicine Report, "Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States," emerging diseases are:

...those whose incidence in humans has increased within the past two decades or threatens to increase in the near future. Emergence may be due to the spread of a new agent, to the recognition of an infection that has been present in the population but has gone undetected, or to the realization that an established disease has an infectious origin. Emergence may also be used to describe the reappearance (or reemergence) of a known infection after a decline in incidence.

Re-emergence may also occur because of breakdowns in public health measures for previously controlled infections.

Emerging diseases include: AIDS, Lyme disease, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and others.
Re-emerging diseases include: malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, pertussis, influenza, and others.

Travelers should be aware that some diseases thought to be under control in the United States may be experiencing a outbreak in other countries. Get information and take precautions before being exposed to one of these diseases.

This page was last updated on: February 14, 2008.

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