Each day, two million people move across national borders. The ease in which people can travel means that the proliferation of infectious diseases in one country is a threat to the health and economic well-being of all nations. Moreover, as globalization occurs, the United States economy is becoming more interdependent with the economies of other nations. Yet infectious diseases continue to paralyze the economies of many developing nations. The United States also needs to understand that changes and improvements in public health and research initiatives could greatly improve international health.
Infectious diseases play a major role in the health of the developing world.
One of the leading causes of disease reemergence is the breakdown of the public health structure, which could be improved with financial and technical assistance. Another important cause of increasing disease incidence is the rise of drug-resistant strains, yet not enough funding is devoted to these diseases of the developing world. This forces a global disequilibrium in global health, which could be remedied with the influence of the developed world on the research community. In order to better illustrate these points, I propose to use the problem of tuberculosis and our work in the tuberculosis arena to illustrate the problems and solutions that are inherent in the field of global health. Yet precisely because there is a lack of public support for the disease, the problem of tuberculosis has sat on the back-burner of disease priorities for years.