The agenda for the immunologist

Abstract

Many tools have been used to minimize the impact of an infection on a population. For example, ever since John Snow studied the pattern of diarrhoeal disease during a cholera outbreak, and prevented further spread by removing the handle from the Broad Street pump, epidemiology has been a powerful approach to understand the transmission and expression of infectious disease. The use of epidemiological approaches to identify risk factors for disease transmission or pathogenesis facilitates the design of mechanistic studies in vitro, as well as the implementation of targeted interventions to prevent infection, or at least the more severe manifestations of the infection. However, to date, our understanding of the transmission of Helicobacter pylori is such that no easily implemented change in behaviour can adequately prevent its transmission, or prevent the development of the more severe complications associated with this infection.