These are new or previously known diseases, that reappear with a fast-growing incidence or in new geographic areas. The appearance of these diseases is associated with the evolution of infectious agents.
International trade and population movements, among other factors, create the conditions for the propagation of new pathogenic agents, facilitating the transmission of infections and epidemics between countries and regions.
Over centuries these diseases have represented, next to the wars and the hunger, the main threats for the progress and the survival of humanity, and in some cases may condition situations of risk or epidemic crisis, as happened with acute respiratory syndrome (ARS), avian influenza and haemorrhagic fevers, among many other cases.
Research into these diseases is focused on prevention and control: epidemiologic surveillance systems, early diagnosis, development of new treatments and vaccines, and the implementation of vaccines in the poorest countries (including different considerations for their implantation, incidences following their introduction, etc.).
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