Photo Gallery The Dangers of Disease
The Ebola outbreak provides the most recent example for how quickly infectious diseases can spread. But previous outbreaks in recent years have also shown that diseases can disappear just as quickly. Medical expert Jeremy Farrar says it isn't known where the respiratory illness SARS went, or whether it might come back. Here, children attending ballet lessons in Hong Kong in 2003 during the height of the SARS outbreak.
Ebola is grabbing the headlines, but there are plenty of other outbreaks around the world that experts are concerned about. The MERS virus (pictured here) in the Middle East, for example, is closely related to SARS and could be spreading.
Also of concern is the Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean and South America. It is carried by the same family of mosquitoes that spreads Dengue and is moving closer to southern Europe. Here, workers fumigate a public school against mosquitoes.
Malaysia too is taking precautions against the MERS virus. Earlier this year, the country quarantined several people who had come into contact with the disease. "The question is," says Farrar: "Will the MERS virus become a similarly dangerous virus as SARS? And will SARS come back? We do not know."
Dengue fever causes 25,000 deaths around the world each year and is increasing in frequency globally. "The Dengue mosquito is beautifully adapted to urban living," says Farrar. "It benefits from the worldwide trend to urbanization, increased movement and change in environment." This image shows workers in Tokyo spraying a park against the Dengue mosquito.
