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PL11
Infections – past, present and future
Author(s) -
Welsby PD
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
oral diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.953
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1601-0825
pISSN - 1354-523X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1601-0825.2006.01306_11.x
Subject(s) - smallpox , pandemic , tuberculosis , drug resistance , biology , medicine , virology , vaccination , covid-19 , disease , genetics , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology
The reasons that some past infections, including smallpox and diphtheria, have been conquered or controlled will be explored, as will the reasons that some other infections such as tuberculosis and leprosy remain a problem. At present HIV remains a major problem. All antiretroviral drugs are viristatic and thus, even in combination, not curative. Killing HIV will require a ’guided missile’ drug that will penetrate every infected cell to remove the HIV‐directed DNA within the host genome and this will not be possible, I predict, for decades. Even if a vaccination were available there will be numerous practical problems. The reasons why Edinburgh (incorrectly) received the accolade ’The AIDS Capital of Europe’ will be explored and dismissed as a media creation. In the future influenza will cause a world pandemic (the question is not if, but when). Drug resistant infections will continually develop in, and be spread from, hospitals. Most bacteria divide rapidly and it is surprising that drug resistance takes so long to develop. Jet travel will allow infections to spread to anywhere on the globe within 36 h. The fact that HIV and similar retroviruses insert themselves into host cell genomes, and that these sequences can thereafter function genetically, raises the possibility that some genetic disorders were originally infections and also that such inheritance of acquired characteristics opens the door for genetic manipulation which has implications for manipulation of Darwinian evolution in humans and their pathogens.