The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance - Hardcover

Garrett, Laurie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374126461 ISBN 13: 9780374126469

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 1994

Synopsis

Based on research and interviews with experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, an exploration of our battles with microbes examines the current outbreak of infectious diseases and outlines what can be done to prevent the coming plague. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review:

Where's your next disease coming from? From anywhere in the world--from overflowing sewage in Cairo, from a war zone in Rwanda, from an energy-efficient office building in California, from a pig farm in China or North Carolina. "Preparedness demands understanding" writes Pulitzer-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, and in this precursor to Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health she shows true understanding of the patterns lying beneath the new diseases in the headlines (AIDS, Lyme) and the old ones resurgent (tuberculosis, cholera). As the human population explodes, ecologies collapse and simplify, and disease organisms move into the gaps. As globalisation continues, diseases can move from one country to another as fast as an aeroplane can fly.

While the human race battles itself... the advantage moves to the microbes' court. They are our predators and they will be victorious if we, Homo sapiens, do not learn how to live in a rational global village that affords the microbes few opportunities.

Her picture is not entirely bleak: epidemics grow when a disease outbreak is amplified--by contaminated water supplies, by shared needles, by recirculated air, by prostitution--and controlling disease amplifiers is within our power, a matter of money, people and will. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Synopsis:

An exploration of the battle against microbes, based on research in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, examines the current outbreak of infectious diseases and outlines what can be done to prevent the coming plague.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0374126461
• ISBN 13: 9780374126469
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 750