Infectious Diseases and the Future: Policies for Europe

Summaries of the EASAC report: European Public Health and Innovation Policy for Infectious Disease: The View from EASAC

These documents are summaries of the full EASAC report on Infectious Diseases. It offers readers non-technical accounts of the principal content and conclusions of that report.

The 20th century saw many social, scientific and medical developments that greatly reduced the impact of infectious disease. It began to seem that public health measures, vaccination and antibiotics would soon render most infections a distant memory. But despite many successes, communicable illness still accounts for some 10% of Europe’s burden of disease. The advent of new infectious micro-organisms, the resurgence of old infections, increased migration and travel, and the emergence of antibiotic resistance have frustrated further improvement.

The economic impact of infection is considerable. The price of treating infectious disease is much greater than that of preventing it.