Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?" Well, the 21st century is going to be one hell of a bug hunt. There's no doubt that eerie new infectious diseases will appear, and the struggles against some of them will make the fight against the AIDS virus look like the opening battle of a war. Of course, by then there will probably be a vaccine for AIDS, and the shot will cost a few dollars or be given for free...
Today new viruses are coming out of nature and "discovering" the human species, while in hospitals and in jungle clinics exceedingly powerful mutant bacteria are emerging that can't be treated with antibiotics. In the past decade, at least 50 new viruses have appeared, including Ebola Ivory Coast, Andes virus, hepatitis G, Fakeeh, Pirital, Whitewater Arroyo, Hendra virus, Black Lagoon virus, Nipah and Oscar virus. This summer West Nile virus showed up for the first time in the western hemisphere, when it was discovered in New York City...
...Viruses are moving into the human species because there are more of us all the time. From a virus' point of view, we look like a free lunch that's getting bigger. My grandfather was born in 1899, on the eve of a new century, when there were 1.5 billion people on earth. He died in 1995, and by then there were almost 6 billion people. Thus in one lifetime the population quadrupled, and it's heading for 9 or 10 billion. In nature, when populations soar--and become densely packed--viral diseases tend to break out; then the population...
...they fly. The human species has become a biological Internet with fast connections. The bionet will only get faster in the next century--that is, more people will travel by air more often, increasing the speed at which diseases move. If a tropical megacity gets hit with a new virus, New York City and Los Angeles will see it days or weeks later...
...January 2000, the AIDS epidemic will have claimed 15 million lives and left 40 million people living with a viral infection that slowly but relentlessly erodes the immune system. Accounting for more than 3 million deaths in the past year alone, the AIDS virus has become the deadliest microbe in the world, more lethal than even TB and malaria. There are 34 developing countries where the prevalence of this infection is 2% or greater. In Africa nearly a dozen countries have a rate higher than 10%, including four southern nations in which a quarter of the people are infected...