key: cord-0008088-oouggdin
authors: Stanton, Bonita F.
title: Global Infections and Child Health
date: 2017-07-20
journal: Pediatr Clin North Am
DOI: 10.1016/j.pcl.2017.05.002
sha: b3aaaa6f04f7085765dcd7d4145f09184c32ae0a
doc_id: 8088
cord_uid: oouggdin

nan

Despite much progress in their control, infectious diseases remain a global concern. The number of under-five deaths worldwide has declined from 12.7 million in 1990 to 5.9 million in 2015 (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs178/en/). Globally, approximately half of under-five deaths are due to infectious diseases. 1 Although numbers are substantially lower in industrialized nations including the United States, infectious causes remain among the top 10 causes of childhood mortality and cause significant morbidity (http://www.kidsdata.org/topic/659/childdeathrate-age-cause). Moreover, infectious diseases are continually emerging as new pathogens, as more virulent pathogens, and/or in new settings. In the past few years, the World Health Organization has noted the appearance of a Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease, Marburg virus, Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, coronavirus diseases, Nipah and Rift Valley fever (http://www.who.int/medicines/ebola-treatment/WHO-list-of-topemerging-diseases/en/). Over the past year, Zika virus has emerged as a major threat in the Americas, including the United States (https://www.cdc.gov/zika/ index.html).

Thus, there are many reasons it is important for every pediatrician to be familiar with extant and emerging pathogens from across the globe. First, we are a single globe, and health and wellness is our concern worldwide. Second, whether or not the pathogen is currently in the United States, it could easily arrive here-and thrive.

This issue of Pediatric Clinics of North America effectively summarizes a vast literature updating the health care provider on familiar infectious diseases and describing those that are newly recognized, emerging, and/or migrating. The issue is both fasci- 

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