Import seltener, aber lebensbedrohlicher und hochansteckender Erreger: Heutige Situation und Ausblick

Internists should expect to be the first contact for patients with rare, but highly contagious, life-threatening illnesses. Although certainly not encountered often, it is associated with significant consequences. Thus, physicians should be familiar with viral hemorrhagic fevers: filoviruses cause Ebola and Marburg fever, arenaviruses cause Lassa fever and South American hemorrhagic fevers, and the bunyaviruses cause among others Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever. Furthermore, physicians should be familiar with highly contagious respiratory infections, such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, pneumonic plague, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).