Dr. John's vision for this issue is to provide an update to general pediatricians on infectious diseases of importance to them in clinical practice. These include infections that are commonly seen, emerging infectious diseases and infections that are infrequent but can be severe, and so are worth knowing about. As noted in the title, the focus of the issue is on advances in evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of these illnesses. Articles are devoted to bacterial infections, drug-resistant infections, neonatal infectious diseases, rickettsial disease, parasitic diseases, and global infectious diseases.