★The authors are Donato Greco, medical expert, consultant for the World Health Organization and member of the Covid-19 Emergency Scientific Technical Committee; Eva Benelli, journalist, member of the Scientific Committee for Post-Marketing Surveillance of Covid Vaccines of the Italian Medicines Agency.

An autobiographical and scientific journey of epidemiology through nearly 50 years in Italy and around the world by a witness. From cholera in Naples in 1973, when infectious diseases were still a major health threat, to chronic diseases related to lifestyles, to the changes in health care organization that brought us to the threshold of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each chapter is a story of an epidemic experienced in Italy or abroad, told with humanity and humor, enriched by an in-depth look at how to deal with an epidemic threat, the nature of pathogens, and the tools for living with or defeating viruses and bacteria.

The book also offers a history of the mistakes and the lack of perspectives and conditions, ideological, political and organizational, that have influenced over the decades the strategies of health policy around the world that seeks to govern the process for disease control.

Donato Greco
From Naples, Italy, he specializes in hygiene and tropical diseases, preventive medicine and health statistics. He directed the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the National Center for Epidemiology, both at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. He was director general of prevention at the Ministry of Health and director of the Center for Disease Control. He is a consultant for the World Health Organization and, as of March 16, 2021, a member of the Covid-19 Emergency Scientific Technical Committee.

Eva Benelli
She is a journalist, a partner in the scientific publishing agency Zadig, and news editor of EpiCentro, the public health epidemiology portal web of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. She is a member of the Scientific Committee for Post-Marketing Surveillance of Covid Vaccines of the Italian Medicines Agency.