Changing patterns of infectious disease

Despite a century of often successful prevention and control efforts, infec tious diseases remain an important global problem in public health, causing over 13 million deaths each year. Changes in society, technology and the m icroorganisms themselves are contributing to the emergence of new diseases, the re-emergence of diseases once controlled, and to the development of an timicrobial resistance. Two areas of special concern in the twenty-first ce ntury are food-borne disease and antimicrobial resistance. The effective co ntrol of infectious diseases in the new millennium will require effective p ublic health infrastructures that will rapidly recognize and respond to the m and will prevent emerging problems.