Emerging concepts for emerging diseases

Zika, chikungunya, dengue fever, influenza: four emerging infectious diseases whose frequency of occurrence, diversity and impact on the health of populations worldwide make them one of the dominant topics of contemporary medicine. This series of lessons, and the seminars that accompanied them, aimed to decipher the mechanisms underlying these emerging diseases, and to better define the diagnostic, prevention and treatment tools - in a word, the integrated tools for their control. These lessons have also highlighted the extent to which current infectious disease outbreaks are linked to major environmental, ecological and climatic changes, as well as to unprecedented anthropological and sociological changes, which are intrinsically linked to environmental change. The management of emerging infectious diseases, including the worldwide development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, is one of the major contemporary challenges, the multidisciplinary approach to which requires not only training for the healthcare personnel concerned, but also an understanding on the part of the population, whose adherence to preventive measures is vital.