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Journal article

Emerging bacterial pathogens: the past and beyond.

  • Vouga M Center for Research on Intracellular Bacteria, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne and University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Greub G Center for Research on Intracellular Bacteria, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne and University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland. Electronic address: gilbert.greub@chuv.ch.
  • 2015-10-24
Published in:
  • Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. - 2016
Disease causation
Koch postulates
emerging bacteria
emerging infectious diseases
intracellular bacteria
zoonoses
Animals
Bacteria
Bacterial Infections
Bacteriological Techniques
Communicable Disease Control
Communicable Diseases, Emerging
Diagnostic Tests, Routine
Global Health
Humans
Zoonoses
English Since the 1950s, medical communities have been facing with emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, and emerging pathogens are now considered to be a major microbiologic public health threat. In this review, we focus on bacterial emerging diseases and explore factors involved in their emergence as well as future challenges. We identified 26 major emerging and reemerging infectious diseases of bacterial origin; most of them originated either from an animal and are considered to be zoonoses or from water sources. Major contributing factors in the emergence of these bacterial infections are: (1) development of new diagnostic tools, such as improvements in culture methods, development of molecular techniques and implementation of mass spectrometry in microbiology; (2) increase in human exposure to bacterial pathogens as a result of sociodemographic and environmental changes; and (3) emergence of more virulent bacterial strains and opportunistic infections, especially affecting immunocompromised populations. A precise definition of their implications in human disease is challenging and requires the comprehensive integration of microbiological, clinical and epidemiologic aspects as well as the use of experimental models. It is now urgent to allocate financial resources to gather international data to provide a better understanding of the clinical relevance of these waterborne and zoonotic emerging diseases.
Language
  • English
Open access status
bronze
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/13007
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