In a commentary published in the Journal of Public Health Policy, ​Dr. Ruth Berkelman, faculty at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University and Dr. James LeDuc, faculty at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, share that a low burden of disease does not equate to reduced potential public health importance for many infectious diseases. Some diseases such as Nipah and MERS have the potential for human-to-human transmission with potentially devastating consequences, as currently seen with Ebola. Policymakers should not be lulled into thinking that the best use of resources is necessarily to allocate them to the more visible problems.

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jphp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jphp201515a.html