Deadliest Enemy

The USA Today Bestseller

'The infectious disease expert who predicted the spread of coronavirus' - Daily Mail

'Osterholm has produced a sharp, persuasive and urgent manifesto for how the world needs to think differently about natural threats, offering a blueprint for setting priorities and explaining why the infrastructure of global health needs reconfiguring... Deadliest Enemy will help to set the terms of that essential post-coronavirus conversation.' - Financial Times

Unlike natural disasters, whose destruction is concentrated in a limited area over a period of days, and illnesses, which have devastating effects but are limited to individuals and their families, infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt.

In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. And as outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, MERS, and Zika have demonstrated, we are woefully under-prepared to deal with the fallout. So what can - and must - we do in order to protect ourselves from mankind's deadliest enemy?

Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, policy research, and hard-earned epidemiological lessons, Deadliest Enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease. The authors show how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bio-terror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza or coronavirus pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.

Deadliest Enemy is high scientific drama, a chronicle of medical mystery and discovery, a reality check and a practical plan of action.