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a outbreaks every year. Organization (WHO), scientists have identified more than 1,500 new pathogens, most of which began in animals and then spread to humans. Some never caused much harm; others, such as HIV and COVID, were catastrophes. HIV/AIDS has killed more 36 million people, and more than 37 million people are living with HIV today. There are 1.5 million new cases every year4, though the number of new cases is going down each year because people who are being properly treated with antiviral drugs don't spread the disease. And with the exception of smallpox--the only human disease ever eradicated--old infectious diseases are still hanging around. Even plague, a disease most of us associate with ancient times, is still with us. It struck Madagascar in 2017, infecting more than 2,400 people and killing more than 200.5 The WHO receives reports of at least 40 cholera outbreaks every year. Between 1976 and 2018, there were 24 localized outbreaks and one epidemic of Ebola. If you include small outbreaks, there are probably 200 or more every year. In other words, the book on infectious diseases is not closed. We're not even near the last page. <~?~Insert art 003_Gate_9780593534489_art_r1> Endemic killers. HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis have killed more than 100 million people worldwide since the year 1990. Failure to contain and stop COVID transmission will make it an unwelcome addition to this dangerous group. (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) AIDS and other "silent epidemics," as they came to be known--tuberculosis, malaria, diarrheal diseases, maternal and neonatal conditions, and others--are the focus of the foundation's global health work. In 2000, they killed more than 15 million people, many of them