Predicting global health threats for 2016

Which diseases might plague the world in 2016? Experts say that relatively unheard-of diseases could emerge, such as the Zika virus, which may already be causing birth defects in Brazil and French Polynesia. Or known threats such as Ebola could return.

“Ebola and SARS and avian flu have taught us that we have to be prepared for the unknown, for epidemics from an agent we haven’t precisely seen before, or we didn’t anticipate as having a huge impact,” said Dyann Wirth, chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was interviewed along with other infectious disease experts in a January 4, 2016 NPR article.

Read the NPR article: Global Health Forecast for 2016: Which Diseases Will Rise … Or Fall?