Events Since 2001

Viruses have caused some of the most dramatic and deadly disease pandemics in human history. A highly contagious disease caused by the variola virus, smallpox plagued mankind since 10,000 BC. In the 20th century alone smallpox killed between 300-500 million people before its eradication in 1980. The 1918-1919 “Spanish Flu” pandemic infected roughly one-third of the world's human population causing an estimated 50-100 million deaths. In 2009, a novel swine-origin H1N1 strain of influenza A virus rapidly spread to over 213 countries causing the first declared pandemic of the 21st century.

In the past half century, a number of deadly zoonotic disease outbreaks caused by novel viruses -- Nipah virus in Malaysia, Hendra virus in Australia, Hantavirus in the United States, Ebola virus in Africa, SARS and MERS CoV among others -- have underscored the urgency of understanding factors influencing viral disease emergence and spread.

On March 18th and 19th, 2014, the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Microbial Threats will host a public workshop to explore factors driving the appearance, establishment, and spread of emerging, reemerging and novel viral diseases; the global health and economic impacts of recently emerging and novel viral diseases in humans; and, the scientific and policy approaches to improving domestic and international capacity to detect and respond to global outbreaks of infectious disease.