Category: Infectious Disease

  • Deep Look into COVID-19: Adapting to a COVID World

    As the second anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic approaches, the world looks significantly different than it did nearly two years ago. According to recent statistics, the virus has infected more than 383 million people and has caused nearly 5.7 million deaths, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history. The world […]

  • The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis

    The steady and alarming rise in antibiotic resistance poses one of the greatest challenges to public health and modern medicine. The U.S. CDC estimates that drug-resistant bacteria sicken more than 2 million people annually, causing 23,000 deaths and resulting in $20 billion in excess health-care costs and an additional $35 billion in lost productivity. The […]

  • When the Drug is Alive

    Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most pressing global health issues of the 21st Century. In 2016, epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee was involved in a remarkable case where she and her colleagues revived a hundred year old forgotten cure – bacteriophage therapy – which saved her husband’s life from a deadly superbug infection. Strathdee and her […]

  • A Personal Encounter with a Global Crisis

    Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with what appeared to be a routine (if severe) case of food poisoning. Tom’s condition quickly deteriorated, and upon transfer to a hospital in Germany blood work revealed that he had contracted one of the most dangerous superbugs […]