BENEFITS FROM INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN MICROBIOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW

摘要

Infectious diseases today are recognized as global health problems, with the emergence of new pathogens or the re-emergence of old ones reflecting a tendency that is becoming more and more apparent. Factors contributing to this situation are increased international travel and commerce, human population shifts and behaviour, microbial adaptation and variation, breakdown of public health measures, and abnormal natural occurrences that upset the delicate balance of host-parasite interactions. Biological weapons (BW) control must be viewed within this global infectious disease context. The battle against infectious diseases was revolutionized in the last decades through the rigorous application of public health measures including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, epidemiological surveillance and basic hygiene. However, the success of these measures depends to a large degree on the standard of living in a particular area. The differences in the industrialized nations and the developing countries are quite evident in statistics compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO). There are approximately 52 million deaths per year worldwide. One-third of those deaths are due to infectious diseases, and nearly all of these occur in developing countries. The economic imbalances and the impact they can have on health and security have been elaborated upon in several studies. In a recent report, Malcolm Dando identified two primary tasks to which modern biotechnology could be applied to help the developing world: in feeding the world in the next century and contributing to the improvement of health. He goes on to suggest that the developed world has in the past misunderstood its security interests, failing to recognize that basic nutritional and health problems in the developing world will affect us all directly. According to a further study compiled for the United Nations Development Programm (UNDP), there is indeed a renewed interest today in international cooperation, spurred on by the fact that "health risks anywhere can pose a threat everywhere". The aim of this paper is to examine in an overview fashion security benefits that may be gained from international cooperation in microbiology. The focus is of course on infectious diseases in relation to biological weapons. However, as noted above, this must be treated in a global health context. Ongoing initiatives will be reviewed and others suggested.