Editorial: Emerging and Re-emerging Vector-borne and Zoonotic Diseases

Frontiers in Medicine

article

Alfonso J. Rodriguez-Morales¹  Jaime A. Cardona-Ospina¹  Matthew H. Collins⁵ 

[1] Faculty of Medicine, Fundacion Universitaria Autonoma de las Americas;Emerging Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Group, Instituto para la Investigación en Ciencias Biomédicas - Sci-Help;School of Medicine, Universidad Privada Franz Tamayo (UNIFRANZ);Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad Científica del Sur;Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, United States

关键词: vector-borne diseases;    zoonotic diseases;    emerging;    tropical diseases;    emerging infectious diseases;    global health;    spillover;    pandemic;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2021.714630

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez stated in his last will, “la muerte no llega con la vejez, sino con el olvido” (“death does not come with old age, but with oblivion”). Indeed, how many deaths due to tropical diseases can be avoided? How can investment in these neglected diseases significantly change the course of the disease? Even in a macro vision, how could the socioeconomic condition of those affected by these diseases be changed to avoid transmission, morbidity, and mortality? We must rescue tropical and emerging global diseases from oblivion, and the rescue begins with us. Despite significant advances in diagnostic tools, sequencing technologies (1–5), new drugs, and vaccine development using precision medicine (6–9), pharmacogenomics (10–12), computational and in silico models (13–16), and artificial intelligence (17–20); the benefits of these accomplishments have not been fully realized in the field of emerging and re-emerging vector-borne and zoonotic diseases (21). Emerging vector-borne and zoonotic diseases are a growing threat to global health and have caused hundreds of billions of US dollars of economic damage in the past 20 years (22). Together, these infections are responsible for a substantial disease burden, with endemic and enzootic zoonoses, and metaxenic diseases causing about a billion cases of illness in people and millions of deaths every year (22). Moreover, old foes with us for hundreds [like Chagas disease (23–25)] or thousands [like leprosy or Hansen’s disease (26–28)] of years are yet to be eliminated or controlled in many countries. This is the tragedy of neglected tropical diseases. Disinterest and disincentive are monstrous impediments to the progress that could be made by governments, major pharmaceutical companies, and other actors in the development of new drugs, research initiatives, diagnostics, and vaccines for these diseases.

【 授权许可】

CC BY