It seems to me that what is described here is only the tip of the iceberg re the various biological creepy crawlies that are quietly multiplying all over the planet.
The book Pandemonuim by Andrew Nikiforuk describes the situation.

Perhaps a return to a situation where the world population is curtailed by disease and epidemics is no bad thing for the health of the planet as a whole. Not nice for us, though. I wonder who is likely to survive best - people in developed countries where modern medicine has ensured the 'survival of the unfit' or those in countries where survival of the fittest has prevailed?

Georgia (not the North American one) has been working on phage treatment to counter intractable problems like golden staph, but you rarely ever read about it.

Perhaps when their big breakthrough comes, big pharma will try to muscle in, but hopefully they will not succumb to intimidation and blackmail.

But maybe I'm just plain naive.

The article is meaningless.. there are certainly risks in what the author describes, but have infectious diseases become more common or less of late? Where are the stats? Not only from the ABS but also the AIHW. Are there any trends evident? I doubt it as I seem to recall looking at some of the figure recently for other reasons.

If the author has any evidence that infectious diseases are starting to take off, he should present it..

If any one of you enjoy a fascinating non fiction book, could I recommend "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garrett?

This book is not a doom and gloom book, it relates the history of how some very dangerous human pathogens were discovered. These pathogens include Lassa fever and Ebola. The stories are often about "Indiana Jones" type adventurers who go around the world investigating the outbreaks of unknown diseases and discovering new ones that no one has ever heard off before.

Included are some fascinating historical facts, like the one where modern medicos went back through old medical journals to diagnose patients who were exhibiting unknown symptoms, and they discovered that a British seaman who had returned from Africa in the mid 1800's had AIDS.

A friend of mine runs a business where one of his customers is a microbiologist. He mentioned to his customer that he had read the book and asked the microbiologist of his opinion of it. His customer knew it well, and added the opinion that it should be required reading in every high school.