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...disease ...remains a major threat but perspective has changed. Because it is now not so much about human induced strife, such as war, that generates disesase but human induced the impacts on the environment that shape how the disease risk increases.

Over the past two decades, increasing concern and attention have been directed at the potential problems and threats associated with new and emerging diseases.

Just as national surveillance is critical to controlling outbreaks within a nation, global surveillance is a significant component to responding to infectious disease worldwide. Among the strongest measures promoting worldwide infectious disease surveillance are the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) revised International Health Regulations, which entered into force in 2005.

23 AUGUST 2007 | GENEVA - More than at any previous time in history, global public health security depends on international cooperation and the willingness of all countries to act effectively in tackling new and emerging threats.

The global nature of the threat posed by new and reemerging infectious diseases will require international cooperation in identifying, controlling, and preventing these diseases. Because of this need for international cooperation, international law will certainly play a role in the global strategy for the control of emerging diseases.

Treatments do exist – Directly observed short course chemotherapy (DOTS) is widely available – but experts now consider them "old, slow and inefficient". What is more, the emergence of multi-drug resistant strains in high-burden countries, especially in Europe, is cause for added concern.

Neighbouring countries need incentives to coordinate disease control, say health policy specialists Ramanan Laxminarayan and colleagues.

The World Health Organization's declaration of a global health emergency in response to a growing number of birth defects or microcephalic babies in Brazil means that its 194 member states must now work together to investigate the cause of the problem.

Experts from the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control continue to reassure us that its spread can be contained with appropriate care. This is true. But appropriate care is difficult—it requires a long stretch of quarantine for anyone who contracts Ebola virus disease and those who come into contact with them.

The articles and commentaries in Emerging Infectious Diseases reflect on the effects of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which arose in China in late 2002 and spread to more than 30 countries in early 2003, sickening about 8,000 people and killing around 800. The outbreak was first publicized by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Mar 12, 2003.