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Volume 1, Number 2—April 1995
Perspective

Travel and the Emergence of Infectious Diseases

Mary E. WilsonComments to Author 
Author affiliation: Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Member: Harvard Working Group on New and Resurgent Infectious Diseases.

Main Article

Table 1

Basic concepts in disease emergence*

Emergence of infectious diseases is complex.
Infectious diseases are dynamic.
Most new infections are not caused by genuinely new pathogens.
Agents involved in new and reemergent infections cross taxonomic lines to include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths.
The concept of the microbe as the cause of disease is inadequate and incomplete.
Human activities are the most potent factors driving disease emergence.
Social, economic, political, climatic, technologic, and environmental factors shape disease patterns and influence emergence.
Understanding and responding to disease emergence require a global perspective, conceptually and geographically.
The current global situation favors disease emergence.

*Adapted from Wilson ME (6).

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