Commentary: How useful is burden of disease to set public health priorities for infectious diseases

Abstract

For many infectious diseases, a low burden of disease does not equate to reduced potential public health importance. Many zoonotic infectious diseases have the potential for human-to-human transmission with potentially devastating consequences as currently seen with Ebola. Policymakers should not be lulled into thinking that the best use of resources is to allocate them only to the most obvious current problems.