Planning for Pandemics: The Formulation of Policy

Chair of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London

Summary

The historical and epidemiological literature abounds with accounts of infectious disease epidemics and of the concomitant effects on population abundance, social organization and the unfolding pattern of historical events. Epidemics have long been a source of fear and fascination in human societies, but it is only in comparatively recent times that their origins and patterns have begun to yield their secrets through scientific study.