We thank you for your overwhelmingly positive response to the launching of Perspectives in Health. Your letters say that the issues presented have resonance and relevance.

Today there are many reasons to believe that our destinies are inextricably intertwined and that together we can do much more than any of us could do alone. Recent Ebola virus outbreaks in Africa have riveted world headlines on a disease whose drama lay as much in its deadlines as in the mistery surrounding its origins. Yet largely due to the rapid national and international response coordinated by the World Health Organization, the outbreak in Zaire was confined to a small corner of the country, and the recent Gabon outbreak was also limited.

We are standing on the brink of a global crisis in infectious diseases. Ebola is only one of some 30 new diseases that have emerged over the past 20 years to threaten the lives of millions of people. For many of these diseases, there is no treatment, vaccine, or cure--only prevention.

On the other hand, the resurgence of diseases once thought under control--malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, dengue, and others--serves as a warning that the progress we have achieved so far towards global security in health may be for naught unless we break the chains of poverty and social marginalization that shackle people to these diseases of antiquity.

In 1995, more than 17 million people died of infectious diseases; 9 million were children. This translates to 50,000 men, women, and children dying from infectious diseases every day.

By dedicating World Health Day 1997 to the theme of new, emerging, and reemerging diseases, we are calling threat by forging a spirit of cooperation such as that which enabled the world to rid itself of smallpox. This idea is not an abstract; it is an ongoing strategy now being successfully applied to the elimination of measles in our Hemisphere and to other diseases that could also soon become relics of the past.

This issue highlights the past, present, and future of disease prevention and control in the Region of the Americas. We begin with the story of Dr. George Giglioli, a familiar name to malaria experts around the world. His seminal research in Guyana, where our feature is based, contains valuable public health lessons for any era. PAHO sought his counsel not only in Guyana, but in Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, and Jamaica. Dr. Giglioli also worked with PAHO specialists in Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

I knew Dr. Giglioli and know he would be intrigued and absorbed by a scientific phenomenon troubling disease experts today: the global warming trend and its effect on spreading disease. How climate change may adversely affect human health is examined in the article "The Climate of Change: Omens for the Future".

Social values play a significant role in how communities confronts health issues. In this edition, we take you to the United States-Mexican border, where health workers are developing innovative and culturally sensitive approaches that blend medical knowledge with human understanding.

Violence is a public health "disease" whose growing proportions have elicited great public outrage but few guarantees of protection and healing to children, one of its most frequent victims. We focus on what can be done.