Emerging and Re-emerging Viral Diseases

In particular, the current decade is concerned with the emergence of novel human infections and the re-emergence of several diseases.

Emerging viral disease: A disease that has recently revealed in a population or may have existed in the past but is expanding quickly in terms of incidence or geographic reach is considered an emerging disease by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Emerging infections are essentially illnesses whose prevalence has been observed to have increased in recent decades or has threatened to increase in the future. Such emergences frequently occur as a result of the discovery or expansion of a pathogen in more recent locations, the identification of diseases that have been prevalent in a community but were previously unknown.

A few recent human emerging viral diseases are:

• Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome
• Hendra virus infection
• Nipah virus infection
• Middle east respiratory syndrome
• COVID-19

Re-emerging viral disease: Diseases that appear after a prolonged period of decrease are referred to as re-emerging diseases. Re-emergence of diseases that were once under control could be caused by a failure in public health policies. They may also take place when novel variations of existing disease-causing organisms are discovered.

Re-emerging infections typically inflict a considerable loss of life, and because of their rapid international spread, they are a huge source of fear and distress. Whereas, in addition to being dangerous to human health, emerging pathogens provide a severe threat to development, security, and the economy.

Human re-emerging viral infections include some of the following:

• West nile virus
• Dengue virus
• Zika virus disease
• Lassa virus
• Ebola virus