Emerging infections & infectious threats

Infectious diseases physicians, scientists and other health professionals work to protect everyone from emerging infections every day.

These can be either new infections, like COVID-19 was in 2020, or a known infection that is spreading rapidly, such as measles today.    

• Emerging infections are new diseases that have recently appeared in a population; known diseases that have spread to new areas or populations; known diseases that are spreading more quickly; or known diseases that do not respond to standard treatments. Examples include COVID-19, mpox and Zika. 

• Reemerging infections are known diseases that have come back after being mostly controlled, or known diseases that are reappearing due to new strains or breakdowns in public health measures. Examples include measles, pertussis and malaria. 

• Drug-resistant infections are infections caused by pathogens that have become resistant to antimicrobial drugs, such as antibiotics, antivirals or antifungals. This makes infections harder to treat, resulting in longer hospital stays and, in some cases, death. Examples include the fungus Candida auris and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a drug-resistant bacterium. 

Serious public threats

Emerging infectious diseases are serious public health threats, and their incidence is increasing globally for several reasons:  

• Many emerging infectious diseases are “zoonotic” — the disease has been transmitted from animals to humans through direct contact or through food, water and the environment. The decrease in wild areas is forcing more animals into closer contact with people. For example, deforestation and urbanization are driving deer into heavily populated areas, increasing the distribution of tick-borne diseases.   

• Increased travel and trade, through globalization, bring people and products from diverse locations into closer contact. This allows diseases to spread more quickly around the world.   

• Climate change is another factor, as many infectious diseases are sensitive to climate. Warmer climates expand the areas where disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks can survive. Extreme weather events also disrupt existing infrastructure and health systems, which makes more people vulnerable to infection.   

• High rates of antimicrobial use in agriculture and for humans are driving increases in antimicrobial resistance across the globe.   

How IDSA is helping to lead the response 

• Policy & Advocacy: IDSA is the professional home for ID physicians and other professionals and therefore a natural leader in the fight against emerging infections at both the patient’s bedside and at the society level. We play a critical role in addressing emerging infections by promoting strong public health infrastructure; facilitating communication across disciplines (veterinary medicine, pharmacy, health care epidemiology and public health); advancing research; and ensuring the ID workforce is equipped to respond effectively.  

• Preserving & Strengthening Public Health Infrastructure: IDSA actively pushes for increased funding for CDC, NIH, ASPR and other agencies to enhance surveillance, lab capacity and outbreak response. The Society supports investments in modernized disease surveillance and real-time data-sharing systems to detect and respond to emerging infections faster. 

• Supporting Research & Innovation: We advocate for expanded funding for ID research, including vaccine development, antimicrobial resistance solutions and rapid diagnostics.  

• Promoting a Strong ID Workforce: IDSA supports policies to improve the readiness of the ID community to respond to emerging infection threats by leveraging the lessons from COVID-19 to enhance existing resources and build new offerings. We also advocate for improved compensation to attract more clinicians to the ID field, ensuring a robust workforce for outbreak response. 

• Front-Line Workforce Education & Information Sharing: IDSA is committed to equipping the ID workforce with the knowledge and skills needed to respond to infectious threats effectively. 

• Clinical Practice Guidelines: IDSA’s practice guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations that help clinicians diagnose, treat and manage infectious diseases effectively, ensuring that responses to new threats are grounded in the best available science. Public health agencies, hospitals and policymakers rely on our guidelines to shape national and local infectious disease response plans. During outbreaks, IDSA develops and updates guidelines to reflect the latest data on diagnosis, treatment and prevention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we released real-time treatment and management guidelines updated whenever important new information emerged, helping clinicians navigate rapidly evolving information.  

• On-Demand and Live Courses: IDSA offers CME-accredited courses, webinars and case-based learning on topics like emerging pathogens, outbreak preparedness and antimicrobial resistance.  

• IDWeek features cutting-edge research on emerging pathogens, outbreak responses and novel treatment approaches, as well as networking and collaboration to facilitate discussions among researchers, public health officials and front-line clinicians to drive a coordinated response to emerging infections. 

• IDSA Academy, IDSA’s online learning platform, provides accessible, high-quality educational resources for ID professionals at all career stages, including a popular Antimicrobial Stewardship Curriculum for ID professionals.  

• Clinician Calls, Webinars, Blogs & Podcasts: IDSA hosts timely discussions on rapidly evolving infectious threats, featuring expert panels and real-world case studies, all available on the Multimedia page. 

• Surveillance & Detection: IDSA helps track emerging infections through its Emerging Infections Network, a provider-based sentinel network composed of members of the ID community. 

• • EIN serves as a bridge between ID clinicians, public health agencies and researchers, ensuring that emerging infections are rapidly identified, discussed and managed based on real-world clinical insights. EIN serves as an early warning system by collecting real-world clinical observations from front-line ID physicians. Members report unusual cases, clusters of infections or emerging resistance patterns, helping identify new or re-emerging threats. Information from EIN has helped detect and track outbreaks such as COVID-19, mpox and antimicrobial-resistant infections.