Inaugural Speech II Surcolombian Symposium on Infectious Diseases

Abstract

As dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Navarra University Foundation- UNINAVARRA-, I would like to offer you a warm greeting of welcome. Infectious diseases have always conditioned the history of humanity. They have determined the outcome of entire epochs: conquests, wars and migrations with important political, religious and economic repercussions. Tuberculosis or white plague, for example, has been present for more than 15,000 years. There are indications of its presence in human bones dating from the Neolithic period, although only its etiological agent was recognized in the 19th century. The bubonic plague in Europe, during the fourteenth century, killed 1/3 of the continental population. Sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, and as described at the end of the 15th century by Girolamo Fracastoro, doctor and poet from Verona in his treatise, "On contagion and contagious diseases and their treatment", were and are important causes of disease and death around the world.