Title: Emergent and Re-emerging diseases: The case of Ebola, Influenza and Tuberculosis

Abstract: As we[1] noted recently, It is about two years since the official confirmation of an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in West Africa. With new cases occurring at their lowest rate for 2015 with the end of the outbreak soon after in all three countries predominantly affected. The time to consider systematic approaches strategies to mitigate the impact of future outbreaks of re-emergent diseases like Ebola or Tuberculosis or Influenza; the result of changing complex social landscapes, is overdue. The recent Ebola outbreak, like many other emerging or re-emergent diseases, illustrates the crucial role of the ecological, social, political, and economic context within which diseases emerge[2]. In this lecture, I will explore what we have learned from dealing with emergent and re-emergent diseases including Tuberculosis in the past and in the era of HIV and the what we have learned from the recent out breaks of Influenza and Ebola.