Emerging and Reemerging Diseases Module 8-Microbiology

Module 08 Homework Assignment

1. Discuss the four (4) different classifications of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and give examples of diseases for each class. How do these classes differ from the three groups classified by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases (NIAID)?

There are four major groups of emerging and reemerging diseases which are classified as newly emerging, reemerging, new manifestations, and known agents in new geographical territories. Newly emerging disease are Hantavirus, Ebola, and aids which are seen as new in human population with respect to human history. Reemerging disease such as malaria and tuberculosis are ever present in the global human population, but are monitored for reemergence based on factors of certain parts of the world being more prone to incidence of the disease. New manifestation of disease are mutations or changes in the disease that make it target a different type of body system for example the difference in incidence of respiratory tuberculosis versus the incidence of the extra pulmonary forms of tuberculosis that infect the organs of the body. An example of a disease that has been known to one part of the world, but is found to be new in a new geographic location is the occurrence of West Nile virus in the United States for the first time in the last 20 years and spread rapidly due to mosquito bite.

These four classes are different from the 3 classifications defined by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases in that the NIAID system is concerned with the time frame since emergence of a disease and its potential for a disease to be used as biological weapon. The NIAID system is defined by the 3 following groups: Group I is a pathogen that has been newly recognized in the last 2 decades; Group II are all reemerging pathogens; and Group III are agents that have the potential to be used for bioterrorism.

2. Describe at least three (3) factors that...