Mysterious hantaviruses are causing gruesome deaths in the West. Potent new forms of TB are emerging in Tennessee and Kentucky. Staph germs that don't respond to the most commonly used antibiotics are spreading from Chicago hospitals to the surrounding community. In fact, more than 30 dangerous new infectious agents have been discovered in the past two decades. The situation is far grimmer elsewhere.
Experts say humanity is now at a crucial turning point in the millennia-old war against microbes.
One reason is the explosion in world population. Most ominously, though, microbes have been hard at work in a deadly race, mutating to create potent new defenses far beyond the reach of many existing treatments.