Office of the Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
EcoHealth Alliance, New York, New York, USA.
mBio. 2020 May 29;11(3):e00812-20. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00812-20.
With great apprehension, the world is now watching the birth of a novel pandemic already causing tremendous suffering, death, and disruption of normal life. Uncertainty and dread are exacerbated by the belief that what we are experiencing is new and mysterious. However, deadly pandemics and disease emergences are not new phenomena: they have been challenging human existence throughout recorded history. Some have killed sizeable percentages of humanity, but humans have always searched for, and often found, ways of mitigating their deadly effects. We here review the ancient and modern histories of such diseases, discuss factors associated with their emergences, and attempt to identify lessons that will help us meet the current challenge.
怀着极大的忧虑，全世界正目睹一场新型大流行病的诞生，这场大流行病已经造成巨大的痛苦、死亡和正常生活的中断。由于我们所经历的是新的和神秘的，因此不确定性和恐惧加剧了。然而，致命的大流行病和疾病的出现并不是新现象：它们在整个有记录的历史中一直挑战着人类的存在。有些疾病已经导致了相当大比例的人类死亡，但人类一直在寻找，并经常找到减轻其致命影响的方法。我们在这里回顾了这些疾病的古代和现代历史，讨论了与它们的出现相关的因素，并试图确定有助于我们应对当前挑战的经验教训。
