Open AccessInfectious Diseases: Considerations for the 21st Century
Author(s) -
Anthony S. Fauci
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
clinical infectious diseases/clinical infectious diseases (online. university of chicago. press)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1537-6591
pISSN - 1058-4838
DOI - 10.1086/319235
Subject(s) - infectious disease (medical specialty) , context (archaeology) , medicine , disease , global health , developing country , engineering ethics , economic growth , public health , biology , pathology , engineering , paleontology , economics
The discipline of infectious diseases will assume added prominence in the 21st century in both developed and developing nations. To an unprecedented extent, issues related to infectious diseases in the context of global health are on the agendas of world leaders, health policymakers, and philanthropies. This attention has focused both on scientific challenges such as vaccine development and on the deleterious effects of infectious diseases on economic development and political stability. Interest in global health has led to increasing levels of financial support, which, combined with recent technological advances, provide extraordinary opportunities for infectious disease research in the 21st century. The sequencing of human and microbial genomes and advances in functional genomics will underpin significant progress in many areas, including understanding human predisposition and susceptibility to disease, microbial pathogenesis, and the development new diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies. Increasingly, infectious disease research will be linked to the development of the medical infrastructure and training needed in developing countries to translate scientific advances into operational reality.