Pandemics

From HIV to H1N1, pandemics pose one of the greatest threats to global health in the twenty-first century. Defined as epidemics of infectious disease across large geographic areas, pandemics can disseminate globally with incredible speed as humans and goods move faster than ever before. While vaccines, drugs, quarantine, and education can reduce the severity of many outbreaks, factors such as global warming, population density, and antibiotic resistance havecomplicated our ability to fight disease. Respiratory infections like influenza and SARS spread quickly as a consequence of modern, mass air travel, while unsafe health practices promote the spread of viruses like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. In Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know, Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Peter C. Doherty addresses the history of pandemics and explores the ones that persist today. He considers what promotes global spread, the types of pathogens most present today and the level of threat they pose, and how to combat outbreaks and mitigate their effects.Concise and informative, Pandemics will serve as the best compact consideration of this topic, written by a major authority in the field.

A gem of a book... Relevant biological, epidemiological and political concepts are explained and scientific cant illuminated in Q and A diversions.These include a most clear and pertinent precis of what immunity means, which is no mean feat. At the same time Doherty is not above asking (and then answering) earthier questions such as: 'What is snot?'

Peter C. Doherty is the Chairman of the department of immunology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and a Laureate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. He was the co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996 (with Rolf Zinkernagel) for discovery of how the immune system recognizes virus-infected cells, and is author of The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize: Advice for Young Scientists.