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Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.

In its annual World Health Report, the United Nations agency warned there was a good possibility that another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions would appear in the coming years.

“Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history,” the WHO said.

It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed 800 people.”It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner or later,” the report warned.

Since the 1970s, the WHO said, new threats have been identified at an “unprecedented rate” of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40 diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.

Over the last five years alone, WHO experts had verified more than 1,100 epidemics of different diseases.

With more than 2 billion people traveling by air every year, the U.N. agency said: “an outbreak or epidemic in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else.”

Date: August 23, 2007
Article: Infectious diseases spreading faster than ever: U.N.
Reference: Fox New