Infectious Disease

Emerging infectious diseases are infections that have newly appeared in a population or have existed but are rapidly increasing in incidence or geographic range. In the mid-20th century, antibiotics cured many of the diseases that were life-threatening. Eradicating the specter of debilitating and fatal diseases, people were optimistic about a world without infectious diseases. Since then new diseases emerged that temper that optimism, such as AIDS and new strains of influenza. In recent years, the increasing mobility of people throughout the world brought the recurrence of diseases that were thought to be eradicated such as monkey pox.

History
Bacteria existed long before humans evolved, and bacterial diseases probably co-evolved with each species. Many bacterial diseases that we see today have been around for as long as we have, others may have developed later.

Flu
Between the middle of 1918 and the middle of 1919, the worldwide Spanish Influenza epidemic killed at least 21 million human beings, well over twice the number of combat deaths in World War I. The Spanish flu had first appeared in America in spring 1918. All over the world, Spanish Influenza ravaged civilian populations. One-quarter of all Americans suffered bouts of influenza. More than 600,000 Americans died, 10,000 of them were Minnesotans. The City of St. Paul saw more than 1,000 deaths; Minneapolis, more than 1,300.

In recent years, the State of Minnesota has not had an infectious disease outbreak that reached epidemic proportion.