What Are EIDs?

As defined by the seminal 1992 Institute of Medicine Report, Emerging Infectious Diseases(EID)?: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States :

"emerging infections are those whose incidence in humans has increased within the past two decades or threatens to increase in the near future. Emergence may be due to the spread of a new agent, to the recognition of an infection that has been present in the population but has gone undetected, or to the realization that an established disease has an infectious origin. Emergence may also be used to describe the reappearance (or "reemergence") of a known infection after a decline in incidence."

The 1995 Report of the Committee on International Science, Engineering and Technology Policy (a White House-appointed committee of the National Science and Technology Council to review the US role in dealing with emerging diseases) listed 29 pathogenic microbes and infectious diseases that have been recognized since 1973. (TABLE 2) In the last two decades over 20 diseases have re-emerged due to various factors. (TABLE 3)