Compact News: CDC Press Release: U.S. safer when CDC works with other countries to fight infectious diseases

Thursday, January 30, 2014

CDC Press Release: U.S. safer when CDC works with other countries to fight infectious diseases

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Press Release

U.S. safer when CDC works with other countries to fight infectious diseases

Projects in Asia and Africa offer model for greater health security in other nations

Uganda epidemiologists collect virus samples from the field, to test for deadly Ebola virus.
Photo: Justin Williams/CDC

According to an article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pilot projects between CDC and Uganda and CDC and Vietnam have resulted in improvements in disease detection and response that may serve as a model for increasing global health security in the rest of the world. Global health security – keeping the U.S. and the world safe and secure from infectious disease threats – is achieved by preventing, detecting and responding to outbreaks as early and effectively as possible.

During six months of intensive collaboration, CDC worked with Uganda’s Ministry of Health and Vietnam’s Ministry of Health to modernize diagnostic testing for high-risk pathogens, develop real-time information systems for faster outbreak response, and improve emergency operations procedures including safe packaging and transport of potentially infectious samples. Improvements include clinicians’ ability to report and track suspected high-risk pathogen cases by text message; expansion of specimen referral and transportation systems supported by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and confirmation of Zika virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, hepatitis E virus, meningococcal disease, yellow fever, and multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) cases in Uganda

“The health security of the United States is only as strong as the health security of all nations around the world. We are all connected by the food we eat, the water we drink, and air we breathe,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Stopping outbreaks where they start is the most effective and least costly way to prevent disease and save lives at home and abroad – and it’s the right thing to do. Progress in Uganda in less than a year shows how effective strategic investments can be.”