Pathogenic microorganisms have repeatedly altered the course of human history. For example, the influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1920 resulted in an estimated 70 million deaths worldwide. Even today, the overall burden of infectious diseases remains high with an estimated 26 % of deaths worldwide.

In 2003 WHO recorded more than 1400 species of infectious organisms known to be pathogen to humans.
Whilst many of these organisms are associated with diseases that have been known for many years, a small but significant percentage are associated with emerging diseases, such as AIDS, Ebola and SARS.
Investigating the history of many diseases demonstrates clearly that the evolution of both humans and pathogens is interlinked.
Human migration has disseminated infectious diseases or brought people into contact with new pathogens. Global environmental change has expanded the range of known pathogens or created the conditions for indigenious micro-organisms to emerge as significant human pathogens.

Emerging pathogens are those that have appeared in a human population for the first time, or have occurred previously but are increasing in incidence or expanding into areas where they have not previously been reported.

Re-emerging pathogens are those whose incidence is increasing as a result of long-term changes in their underlying epidemiology.

By these criteria, 175 species of infectious agents from 96 different genera are classified as emerging pathogens.

Improved methods of surveillance, epidemiological studies and the continuous development of more advanced methods of diagnosis have allowed to detect new pathogenic species of micro-organisms or to associate a known microorganism with a new or atypical set of disease symptoms. Furthermore, the agents of several diseases that were thought to have been controlled are re-emerging as a result of adaptive change in the pathogen, changes to the immunological status of the host, or environmental, demographic and socioeconomic changes. Each of these pathogens represents a public health problem. Since 1970, several species of micro-organisms from human and animal faeces and from environmental sources, including water, have been confirmed as pathogens. Examples include Cryptosporidium, Legionella, E.coli O157, Rotavirus, Hepatitis E virus and Norovirus.

R-Biopharm‘s intention is to help in building up an effective surveillance as well good management system for hygiene measures and for suitable therapy and prevention. Development of fast and reliable test systems for identification of emerging and re-emerging pathogens as well toxins and residuals in food and feed stuffs is one of the company´s core competencies. R-Biopharm stands for a healthy environment that has to be protected.