PRESENTATION

PRESENTATION

CARMEN MORLÁS BONILLA

Lecturer Parasitology and Micology
Executive Editor

The entire world and especially developing countries are still infected and threaten with serious infectious diseases. Their aetiological agents, as old as life itself, have “evolved” in parallel to the human population. These intracellular pathogens have elaborated a variety of strategies to escape of the immune response to make possible their survival and repli-cation in the host. Although, viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungus may escape or adapt to the immune response, they can also sometimes develop strategies in detriment of the human body creating stages of autoimmunity or leading to anergic stages that will make the human body at some extent, more susceptible to develop other infections. All these factors may contribute tremendously in the development of co-infections more frequently seen in patients with immunodefi ciencies and on low income populations commonly seen in third world countries. In these cases the immune system gets “confused” because of the multiple challenges it faces and it does not respond properly to the current challenge. This situation gets more complicated when these microorganisms also avoid the action of different drugs, becoming resistant to them in lieu to continue surviving. Thus, suggesting that the antigenic variability and multiplicity of these microorganisms have contributed to make impossible their prevention and eradication with vaccines.

The establishment of interdisciplinary programs in Medical Schools at the pre and post-graduate level to study the immunological, physio-pathological and epidemiological mecha-nisms involved in infectious diseases may provide a better venue for the understanding, prevention and cure of most of the diseases. The Revista Med has included in the fi rst issue of 2008, the theme of Infectious Diseases as its main topic which will include among others, “Tropical diseases”, “Poverty diseases” or “Neglected Tropical Diseases” named according to the World Health Organization guidelines. Although these diseases are very important health issue, they become a more serious problem due to the lack of funding from pharmaceutical companies to conduct productive research to try to cure them.

We have invited a well recognized infectologist Dr. Gullermo Prada to participate as the editor for this upcoming issue of the Revista Med. We also extended our invitation to the CIMPAT group from the Ande’s University, headed by Dr. Felipe Guhl, who is one of the most important leaders in the control of Chagas’ disease in the country, writers who can contribute with their experiences in treating infectious diseases in newborns, pulmonary diseases, war wounds and other related low prevalence (e.g., hidatidosis and myiasis) dis-eases. We also asked to the recent formed infectology study group at the Hospital Militar Central with an additional contribution for this issue. The Revista Med is encouraging and extending an invitation to all our readers to submit original research manuscripts that should contribute with the understanding and the development of new approaches that will enhance solutions to target health issues in humans.