The Global Burden of Infectious Diseases

Over the last century, infectious diseases have lost a lot of their threat to individuals' health as well as to the health of populations living in industrialized countries. The continuous reduction and effective control of both mortality and morbidity from infectious diseases marks an impressive story of success in the history of public health in the developed world and has been linked to a wide range of improvements that occurred alongside the socioeconomic modernization of these societies. Although many factors (e.g., improved sanitation, development of antibiotics and vaccines, improved living conditions and food quality/availability, and improved health care and surveillance systems) that contributed significantly to the success have been identified, there are, however, still uncertainties about the underlying mechanisms and interactions that led to the decline of infectious disease mortality