Health security in 2014: Building on preparedness knowledge for emerging health threats

摘要

Ideas, information, and microbes are shared worldwide more easily than ever before. New infections, such as the novel influenza A H7N9 or Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, pay little heed to political boundaries as they spread; nature pays little heed to destruction wrought by increasingly frequent natural disasters. Hospital-acquired infections are hard to prevent and contain, because the bacteria are developing resistance to the therapeutic advances of the 20th century. Indeed, threats come in ever-complicated combinations: a combined earthquake, tsunami, and radiation disaster; blackouts in skyscrapers that require new thinking about evacuations and medically fragile populations; or bombings that require as much psychological profiling as chemical profiling. Response requires up-to-date laboratories with genetic sequencing capabilities for infectious agents and rapid detection methods for chemical and radiological threats, nimble medical and epidemiological response units, and an alert and prepared workforce.