EID: Bridging the Gap Between Humans and Wildlife

Sometime in the 1980s, the emerging infectious disease (EID) movement began. The "emerging" label had been used earlier, but a series of high-profile disease outbreaks in the 1980s, combined with perceived funding gaps, began to galvanize the field. A book by Richard Krause of the National Institutes of Health¹ formed part of the initial thrust. Published in the same year as the recognition of AIDS, it commented on the alarming phenomenon of antibiotic-resistant microbes. Further threats surfaced: Legionnaire's disease, toxic shock syndrome, multiple-drug resistance in a host of important pathogens, Lyme disease, and others.

The year 1992 saw the publication of an Institute of Medicine treatise on emerging infections,² and a special section in Science talked about a "post-antimicrobial era," tuberculosis as a "reemergent killer," and the "crisis in antibiotic resistance." This was rapidly followed by Emerging Viruses³ by Stephen S. Morse of Rockefeller University, and another...