Microorganismos y epidemias en la era de la globalización

The increase of outbreaks and epidemics due to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, in developing and developed countries, invites us to analyze the delicate relationship between humans and Nature of which we are also part, since it is being seriously affected by overexploitation of the earth and the invasion of wild spaces; climate change; accelerated globalization; the growth of the population and the development of megalopolis with its inevitable lumpens; forced or uncontrolled migrations, and other elements that facilitate the emergence and transmission of old and new pathogens. The history of humanity as well as the result of many wars, as it is briefly exposed, have been to a certain extent a consequence of infectious pathology. In order not to lose the multidisciplinary perspective, different topics that are essential to understand epidemic phenomena are addressed here. Data related to communicable diseases are also provided. The most alarming outbreaks (especially zoonoses due to RNA viruses), antimicrobial resistance and the three major pandemics (tuberculosis, HIV / AIDS and malaria) are reviewed in some detail in this article, which ends with an overview of the activities carried out worldwide by different institutions (national, multilateral, public and private), whose objective is to face the threats coming from the tangled and turning world of infectious diseases.