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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2007;298:1268.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 142 words of the full text and any section headings.

The world faces an increasing risk of infectious disease epidemics, as well as industrial accidents, natural disasters, and other health emergencies that threaten global public health, according to the World Health Organization's world health report for 2007 (A Safer Future: Global Public Health Security in the 21st Century, available online at http://who.int/whr/2007/en/index.html). Of particular concern are new diseases, which are emerging at the "unprecedented rate" of about 1 per year in the last 4 decades, as well as older infectious disease threats, such as pandemic influenza and tuberculosis.

The report outlines key recommendations, including such measures as global cooperation in surveillance and outbreak alert and response; open sharing of knowledge, technologies, and materials such as viruses and other laboratory samples; and increased global and national resources for training, surveillance, laboratory capacity, response networks, and prevention campaigns.