摘要：

The World Health Report 1996 confirms that infectious diseases have not only become the worlds leading cause of premature death but they also threaten to cripple social and economic development in Third World countries. An estimated 17 million persons die from these largely preventable diseases each year. The spread of infectious diseases has been intensified by changes in human behavior climate ecology land use patterns economic development international migration and travel as well as by inadequate public health infrastructures for monitoring and responding to disease outbreaks and overuse of antibiotics. Recommended is a global response comprised of a renewed attack on diseases that are already targets for eradication or elimination improved surveillance and laboratory facilities for rapid recognition intensive research on new and emerging diseases and health education on personal hygiene and food safety. Recent outbreaks of cholera plague and Ebola hemorrhagic fever led the World Health Organization to set the goal of having a team of experts at the location of an outbreak within 24 hours of notification. The first priority in infectious disease control should be continuation of efforts to eradicate or eliminate diseases such as poliomyelitis guinea worm leprosy neonatal tetanus and Chagas disease. The second priority related to "old" diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria that are acquiring drug resistance entails removing the disease source and researching better treatment regimens. Finally the third priority area concerns research on the source and natural history of newly emerging diseases.

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