Editorial

Gut Pathogens: enteric health at the interface of changing microbiology

Niyaz Ahmed¹ , Leonardo A Sechi² , Francis Megraud³ and Seyed E Hasnain⁴

¹  Pathogen Biology Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India

²  Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy

³  INSERM – U853, Laboratoire de Bactériologie, CHU Pellegrin, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France

⁴  Institute of Life Sciences, Hyderabad University Campus, Hyderabad, India

author email corresponding author email

Gut Pathogens 2009, 1:1doi:10.1186/1757-4749-1-1

Published:	3 February 2009

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

As the open access movement begins revolutionizing the publication of publicly funded biomedical research, it is time to ensure access to important scientific discoveries and opinions within and across the disciplines which have direct bearing on health and quality of life in resource poor settings and in countries of the world where library budgets are seriously shrinking. In this concern, the area of enteric infectious diseases and gut health has been of paramount significance. For example, the enteric infections that cause diarrhoeal diseases already constitute one of the top 10 causes of death and kill approximately 1.81 million people in the developing world (6.9% of total deaths), a figure which is more dramatic and alarming than the number of deaths associated with tuberculosis and malaria put together (Source: The WHO) [1].