1. Understand the importance of HIV/AIDS and other STD as emerging infections.
2. Understand the importance of resistance in HIV/STD.
3. Understand the prevention and control model and strategies for these infectious diseases.

INTRODUCTION

What is the point of talking about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the context of emerging infections? What makes something an emerging disease is determined by ecological factors, including human behavior and the environment, medicine and public health practices, and the changes in the virulence of the organism. I am going to give you many examples of STD that have emerged because of one or more of these factors.

Of course, the classical emerging infection that really is a "new" infection is human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In addition to those that really are truly new, there are those that have always been perking along at some lower, intermediate level of endemic transmission that have really taken off because of changes in virulence or changes in human behavior. Then there are some that have been around for a very long time and probably have not changed a lot, but because of advances in diagnostic techniques, we have recognized them as really important infections that we did not know of before. Those are called "new diseases," even though they have not changed much in their epidemiology. I will present examples of all of these among the thirty or so sexually transmitted diseases that are now recognized.

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