[Infectious disease trends].

Infectious disease mortality has increased during the last decades: from a rate of 38.10(5) inhabitants in 1980-95 to 41, 5.10(5) in 1998. Demographic changes have modified susceptibility to infections, due to the increment of elderly people--who have less immunity--, and the increase in drug-abusers and HIV-infected subjects. Social and technological environmental factors have had some influence on emergent and re-emergent diseases. Key issues to be considered are problems with antimicrobial resistance, infectious related- to chronic diseases, infections in immunodeficient subjects, and new vaccines to use. Among the challenges to public health is the need for incorporating new and rapidly technologies as microarrays, strategies of planning, multisectorial approaches to detecting preventing and controlling emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.