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Until approximately 1850 and the onset of the era of science, administrators of the day were well aware of the triad of famines, epidemics and social disruption, and their consideration of the major causes of disaster was focused on famine and epidemics of quarantinable diseases. With improved sanitary conditions and the documentation of natural catastrophe beyond Europe and North America, brought about by more rapid communication and transportation, interest in natural disaster gradually grew. In industrialized societies today, advances in economic conditions and in public health have virtually eliminated the problem of communicable diseases as disasters. In developing countries, however, communicable diseases continue to cause primary disasters. This is frequently true of such diseases as measles, poliomyelitis, malaria, typhoid fever, and arthropod-borne viruses such as dengue and yellow fever. When this occurs, national authorities usually seek assistance from agencies where there is expertise with communicable disease control, such as the Pan American Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control, rather than from disaster relief agencies.
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