|
COPYRIGHT 2003 Thomson Financial Inc.
This is the second part of a two-part Perspectives on public-health infrastructure issues brought into focus by the emergence of SARS. The first was published May 19.
Thank goodness for SARS?
To the extent that the newly emerged infection turns out to be a wake-up call, alerting lawmakers to crucial enhancements required by public-health systems, we just might voice such gratitude one day. In a slew of recent reports, press briefings, and congressional testimony, public-health analysts and practitioners from around the country have used the attention-getting nature of SARS to highlight the call for policymakers to pay more attention to a host of public-health issues many say have been left on the back burner for far too long.
* Climate, weather, environmental, and wildlife clues need more attention in human-disease study, analysts say. With summer upon us, the SARS outbreak likely will fade for a time. But with summer comes another, equally unpredictable emerging disease in the United States--West Nile Virus.
Where will West Nile prove most damaging in the summer of 2003? Many seek predictions, but few are forthcoming.
"West Nile virus has managed to surprise us each year," Oklahoma assistant state epidemiologist Kristy Bradley recently told the Stateline.org Web news site run by the Pew Center on the States. "We'd like to come to some comfort level in determining how many human cases there could be,"
Some scientists say that predicting and controlling emerging disease threats requires broadening the science base we use to study them.
One problem that stands in the way of understanding infectious diseases and controlling them is the too-human focus of much public-health study today, said Douglas...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
