emerging diseases conference

Wouldn't you know it? -- as soon as I leave St Louis
to do some traveling, the conference on emerging
diseases is held there!

Here's an interesting that merely scratches the surface
of the problem.

emerging viruses

The point about increasing communications between
vetinarians and people doctors is one made in
some of the many books I've been reading, though
I don't remember mentioning it before.

For example, West Nile virus showed up first in
Brooklyn in 1999 in the extraordinary number of
dead birds.

But it took a long time before a connection was
made between those dead birds and the strange
illness affecting elderly people admitted to
local hospitals.

And except for some unusually alert and persistent
hospital workers, the source of the outbreak may
not even have been discovered.

The history of emerging viruses is full of
false diagnoses. How many emerging viruses
are going undiscovered because the victim
is assumed to have the flu or malaria?