title: [Importation of rare but life-threatening and highly contagious diseases. Current situation and outlook].
abstract: Internists should expect to be the first contact for patients with rare, but highly contagious, life-threatening illnesses. Although certainly not encountered often, it is associated with significant consequences. Thus, physicians should be familiar with viral hemorrhagic fevers: filoviruses cause Ebola and Marburg fever, arenaviruses cause Lassa fever and South American hemorrhagic fevers, and the bunyaviruses cause among others Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Furthermore, physicians should be familiar with highly contagious respiratory infections, such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, pneumonic plague, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).
authors.affiliation: Bernhard-Nocht-Institut für Tropenmedizin, Bernhard-Nocht-Str. 74, 20359, Hamburg, Deutschland. burchard@bnitm.de.
authors.forename: G D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Burchard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006482:Hemorrhagic Fevers, Viral / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D058873:Pandemics / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D035583:Rare Diseases; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*
keywords: Communicable diseases, emerging; Disease outbreaks; Hemorrhagic fevers, viral; Respiratory tract infections; Zoonoses