This book is a world geography of emerging diseases from antiquity to the present day. The last four decades of human history have seen the emergence of an unprecedented number of 'new' infectious diseases: the familiar roll call includes AIDS, Ebola, H5N1 influenza, hantavirus, hepatitis E, Lassa fever, legionnaires' and Lyme diseases, Marburg fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and West Nile. The book looks at the epidemiological and geographical conditions which
underpin disease emergence. What are the processes which lead to emergence? Why now in human history? Where do such diseases emerge and how do they spread or fail to spread around the globe? What is the
armoury of surveillance and control measures that may curb the impact of such diseases? Using hundreds of specially-drawn maps to chart the source areas of new diseases and their pathways of spread, it concludes that it is the quantitative pace of emergence, rather than its intrinsic nature, that separates the present period from earlier centuries. The book is divided into three main sections: Part 1 looks at early disease emergence, Part 2 at the processes of disease emergence, and Part 3 at
the future for emergent diseases.
