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TRADE, TRAVEL, AND MIGRATION Throughout history, travelers moving about the world for work, adventure, or resettlement have spread disease. Microbes that infest insects and rodents stowaways—on ancient merchant ships to modern jet planes—have also spread disease. And other disease-causing microbes can lodge in the huge quantity of foods, lumber, and other trade goods that are always moving across the globe.
Today, few places in the world are truly isolated: people and goods are transported more easily, rapidly, and frequently than ever before. The enormous increase in worldwide travel and transport raises important concerns about the spread of infectious diseases.
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 | | Immigrants from Barbadoes arrive in Panama. |
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 | | A physician at Ellis Island in 1904 checks U.S. immigrants for eye ailments, such as trachoma, a contagious infection that can cause blindness. |
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 | | HIV has spread among long-distance truckers in Africa and the sex workers in towns along their routes. Educators in Tanzania promote condom use to drivers and crews. |
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