Staying Ahead of the Biological Competition

Not long after one of the bloodiest wars in recorded history, World War I, the world would be devastated by an infectious pandemic that would ultimately be the cause of more deaths than “The Black Death” of 1347 to 1351.

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The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 caused more than 50 million deaths, worldwide, and the complexity and many unknowns about the virus have made it “an ominous warning to public health,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Many will agree that the Spanish influenza was able to spread so efficiently across the globe because many of the soldiers stationed abroad for World War I made their way home. We continue to expand into a truly global society through voluntary travel for business or pleasure and involuntary travel by refugees displaced by conflict. Because healthcare is not consistent across borders, many of these refugees are, through no fault of their own, bringing infections with them to new areas, and healthcare practitioners are being faced with diseases once thought to be extinct in modern societies. In addition, new infections that are impenetrable by almost all of our modern-day medications are coming to light, such as the latest cases of infections with bacteria carrying the colistin-resistant mcr-1 gene.

Never before have we needed a resource dedicated to bringing together the latest research and information in understanding infectious diseases as we do now. To this end, we have grown and expanded our infectious disease publication, Contagion, to be the number-one resource of infectious diseases, not just for infectious disease specialists, but for any healthcare practitioners who are the first lines of defense for individuals who are infected, as well as the epidemiologists who are looking to understand these diseases, the infectious disease pharmacists working on appropriate treatments, and the general public who need to be educated on what’s out there.

In order to ensure we are providing the most extensive information to our audience, we are bringing together the top minds in infectious diseases from across the country—and across the globe—to the editorial board of Contagion. It’s an audacious goal, but these are audacious diseases and healthcare practitioners need all of the information and resources they can acquire to diagnose, cure, and ultimately, prevent existing and emerging infectious diseases.

Contagion will include, in every issue, the latest news and research in six major disease areas: HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, healthcare-associated infections, respiratory infections, emerging infectious diseases, and prevention. We will also include articles about new research presented at the latest infectious diseases meetings and impactful stories, such as this month’s story on Zika hitting the continental United States.

The Contagion print publication compliments our active website (www.contagionlive.com) and social media sites, which are on top of the latest and trending news in infectious diseases, around the clock and across the globe every day.

As information comes to light on new and emerging infectious diseases from the top researchers in the field, Contagion will be providing you with the latest information to ensure that you are staying on top of it with us and using the information provided to reach the ultimate goal: improved patient outcomes.

Thanks for reading!