1 Introduction

Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases will always be with us. It seems that just as we control one disease, a new threat takes its place. For example, soon after the global community eradicated smallpox in the mid-1970s, Ebola was first detected in Central Africa in 1976. The human immunodeficiency virus was recognized a few years later, having spread undetected for decades. Since then, many other emerging and re-emerging pathogens have threatened the world, including the first severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus in 2002, major outbreaks of Ebola, Zika virus, and now of course the second severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (◘ Fig. 1).