NewYork.cbslocal.com (exerpts):  Lindenhurst, NY - An alarming rise in a potentially fatal bacterial infection known as whooping cough has prompted a warning from the Suffolk County Health Department.  It's a chronic cough, almost a barking sound, that can last more than three months and it is spread easily through droplets.  The whooping cough outbreak started with 13 cases in Smithtown on Long Island in June.  Since then, it has spread to more than a dozen districts in Suffolk County.  What is particularly concerning to health officials is this most recent outbreak has the highest number of cases reported since 2006, when there were 110 for the year.  Now it is 216 cases of whooping cough for the year so far.  


Measles can be fatal.  
 BBC.co.uk (excerpts):  European countries need to act now to tackle measles outbreaks, the World Health Organization Warns.  The WHO report says there were over 26,000 measles cases in 36 European countries from January to October 2011.  Western European countries reported 83%  of those cases, with 14,000 in France alone.  In England and Wales there were just under 1,000 confirmed measles cases in that period - compared with just 374 in the whole of 2010.  Every country in the European region must take the opportunity now to raise coverage amongst susceptible populations, improve surveillance and severely reduce measles virus circulation before the approaching measles high season.

Commentary:  There are more ongoing communicable disease epidemics in the world today than there has been throughout history, in addition to myriads of other diseases which are not listed as communicable.  AIDS alone has taken over 25 million lives just since 1981.  "Nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places" Matthew 24:7.