Outbreaks and Epidemics by Meera Senthilingam

Author:Meera Senthilingam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Published: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Facing the unknown

It should be clear by now that disease outbreaks are anything but rare. In any given month, the World Health Organization reports news of anything from two to twenty or more outbreaks occurring at various locations around the world. In May 2019, for example, news was shared on fifteen outbreaks around the world, ranging from polio in Iran and Rift Valley fever in France to measles in multiple locations and monkeypox in Singapore. On one day, 9 May, three different outbreaks were happening: Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (an ongoing outbreak of international concern), measles in Tunisia and MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia. In some situations, cases are spotted easily, for example during an ongoing outbreak like Ebola or when it’s a well-known infection for a region, such as MERS-CoV. The ever-growing presence of measles globally also has many clinicians on high alert, ready to identify the disease. But when a disease like monkeypox, which is native to Africa and is usually contracted through contact with infected animals, presents itself in Singapore, or when chikungunya, a debilitating infection of the joints most often found in Asia and the Americas, is diagnosed in Italy, health teams need to act fast. Even a disease known to a country can cause confusion when it arrives in a new setting, such as the capital city.

Here are some recent examples of established diseases in one region that have taken health officials in other regions by surprise.

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