The article provides an overview of domestic and foreign literary sources devoted to an urgent challenge in modern health care — infectious morbidity. The extraordinary socio-economic importance of infectious diseases at the present stage throughout the world, including in the Russian Federation, based on their global spread and high economic losses associated with disability, treatment costs and anti-epidemic measures. In recent decades, the emergence of previously unknown “new” infectious diseases and the return of “old” infections, many of which pose a high epidemiological danger and are characterized by high mortality, have been noted. Among the significant reasons for the emergence of “new” infections, an increase in infectious diseases, changes in the nature of the course of known diseases, it is necessary to note such reasons as a change in a person's lifestyle and the introduction of new technologies. In Russia, a high incidence of acute respiratory infections is recorded annually. An increase in the incidence of acute intestinal infections of viral etiology and a decrease in the incidence of these diseases of bacterial etiology are noted. An urgent problem is the high level of morbidity and mortality from infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, as well as the incidence of chronic viral hepatitis and an increase in mortality from their unfavorable outcomes. Natural focal infections remain an important problem, among which hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and tick-borne infections occupy a significant place. The threat of the invasion of infections that cause emergencies in the field of sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population into the Russian Federation territory remains. Infectious diseases are becoming one of the leading causes of premature mortality in the working-age population. In 2020, the Russian Federation faced the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19, which led to high morbidity and mortality. Thus, infectious diseases are an urgent problem for the Russian Federation at the present stage, necessitates the development of a targeted program to reduce morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases.