Broader research 'vital' infectious diseases

Broader research on infectious diseases holds clues to a better understanding of how diseases are spread, according to a report published in the Lancet.

US analysts published an article looking at communicable diseases past and present in the medical journal recently.

Previous studies have tended to focus on how microbes have spread and infected large numbers of the global population, they said.

Black death or bubonic plague, which killed more than 34 million Europeans in the 14th century, came from bacterium Yersinia pestis, for example.

However, other causal factors like poverty, lack of political will, climate changes, ecosystems and land use also have an impact.

Diseases can come from animals and have been spread along trade routes in the past.

HIV/Aids was believed to have been spread to humans from chimpanzees with some of the first cases recorded in the Congo.

"A better understanding of these determinants is essential for our preparedness for the next emerging or reemerging disease that will inevitably confront us," director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said.

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