Detected in 1982, this bacterium is typically transmitted through contaminated food and has caused outbreaks of haemolytic uraemic syndrome in North America, Europe and Japan. Detected in the USA in 1982 and identified as the cause of Lyme disease, this bacterium is now known to be endemic in North America and Europe and is transmitted to humans by ticks. First detected in 1992 in India, this bacterium has since been reported in 7 countries in Asia. The emergence of a new serotype permits the organism to continue to spread and cause disease even in populations protected by antibodies generated in response to previous exposure to other serotypes of the same organism. In many regions, the low cost, first choice antibiotics have lost their power to clear infections of Escherichia coli , Neisseria gonorrhoea , Pneumococcus, Shigella , Staphylococcus aureus - increasing the cost and length of treatment of many common diseases including epidemic diarrhoeal diseases, gonorrhoea, pneumonia and otitis.
Further problems stem from the use of antimicrobial substances in food animal production.
Re-emerging infectious diseases are due to the reappearance of, and an increase in, the number of infections from a disease which is known, but which had formerly caused so few infections that it had no longer been considered a public health problem. In 1991, the 7th cholera pandemic reached the Americas where cholera had not been registered for a century. In 1998, the epidemic spread over eastern and southern Africa and new outbreaks occurred in South America. Dengue haemorrhagic fever has since spread and during the epidemics in Central and South America in 1995-1997, DHF was reported in 24 countries. Diphtheria re-emerged in the Russian Federation and some other republics of the former Soviet Union in 1994 and culminated in 1995 with over 50,000 cases reported.