The Cascading Impact of Infectious Diseases on the Healthcare System

This chapter argues that illustrate, and concretize how and why the cascading effects of infectious diseases exert a unique impact on the healthcare industry. Chief among these attributes is the fact that some infectious diseases are contagious and transmit from human to human. A contagious infectious disease, as it spreads between humans, leads to the steady growth in the burden of infection in an area. Coupled to contagion may be the relative novelty of an infectious disease and consequently the possible lack of vaccines, diagnostics, medications/therapeutics, and treatment guidelines. To fully appreciate the importance of this task, the downstream impacts of infectious disease emergencies on their healthcare sector and beyond are crucial to grasp in order to see the full value of these activities, as well as the stakes at hand. Cascading impacts also hit food production plants as workers themselves became infected.