Epidemics, such as HIV in the early 1980s and Ebola in 2014, inspire decisive government investment and action, and individual and societal concern, sometimes bordering on panic. By contrast, endemic diseases, such as HIV in 2017 and tuberculosis, struggle to maintain the same attention. For many, the paradox is that endemic disease, in its totality, continues to impose a far higher public health burden than epidemic disease. Overall, the swift political response to epidemics has resulted in success. It has proven possible to eradicate epidemic diseases, often without the availability of vaccines and other biomedical technologies. In recent times, only HIV has made the transition from epidemic to endemic, but diseases that have existed for centuries continue to cause most of the infectious disease burden.

中文翻译：

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当一种新出现的疾病成为地方病时

流行病，例如 1980 年代初期的艾滋病毒和 2014 年的埃博拉病毒，激发了果断的政府投资和行动，以及个人和社会的关注，有时甚至接近恐慌。相比之下，2017 年的艾滋病毒和肺结核等地方病难以保持同样的关注。对许多人来说，矛盾的是地方病总体上继续造成比流行病高得多的公共卫生负担。总体而言，对流行病的迅速政治反应取得了成功。事实证明，消灭流行病是可能的，而通常没有疫苗和其他生物医学技术。最近，只有艾滋病毒从流行病转变为地方病，但存在数百年的疾病继续造成大部分传染病负担。