Category: Archive

Thirty years of a Unique Partnership to End Polio-GPEI

chad-polio-vaccination-innovation-outbreak

In 1988, CDC joined three other partners (World Health Organization (WHO), United Nation International Children Fund (UNICF) and Rotary International to launch the ambitious Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). The world was a dangerous place with respect to polio. A case of polio occurred every 90 seconds, meaning 350,000 children had paralytic polio every year. Read More >

Posted on by Dr. John F. Vertefeuille - Incident Manager for the CDC Polio Response and Branch Chief of the Polio Eradication Branch, Global Immunization Division, Center for Global Health, Centers for Disease Control and PreventionTags , , ,

Getting to the Heart of the Matter in Latin America and the Caribbean

A blood pressure screening in Barbados raises awareness of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

“I don’t get migraines, I don’t get dizzy spells any longer,” explains Ms. Williams, a patient at a polyclinic on the Caribbean island nation of Barbados. “It is working for me where I have no problems now with high blood pressure. Yes, I’m hypertensive, but I’m controlled.” Ms. Williams was enrolled as a patient in Read More >

Posted on by Bethany Hall, Scientific Health Communications FellowTags

Rapid Detection Accelerates India’s Response to Nipah Outbreak

CDC is working internationally to build laboratory capacity so that disease can be identified at their source. Photo: CDC India

  On May 17, 2018, almost two weeks after his brother died of febrile illness, a male patient in his mid-twenties visited a hospital in Kerala, India, with a fever. A day later, he was dead — but not before his doctors noticed his symptoms were consistent with encephalitis.Recognizing the potential danger, they immediately sent Read More >

Posted on by Dr. Kayla Laserson, CDC India Country Director

Zambia: A regional leader in NPHI development and emergency management

Dr. Victor Mukonka, Director of the Zambia National Public Health Institute

The Zambia National Public Health Institute (ZNPHI) is young but is already emerging as a leader for public health in Southern Africa. We are proud of our growth over the past four years and the increasing role we have assumed in the region. As ZNPHI  Southern Africa’s first regional workshop on public health emergency management Read More >

Posted on by Dr. Victor Mukonka, Director of the Zambia National Public Health Institute

CDC works with countries to identify children infected with hepatitis B virus and generate the evidence for hepatitis B vaccine birth dose introduction

Anna Minta training the survey team

Around the world, approximately 257 million people are infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV), and about 700,000 die every year as result of the long-term, chronic health threats from HBV, including liver disease and cancer. But, such suffering can be prevented with a vaccine! More tragic still, newborn babies infected at birth by their mothers, Read More >

Posted on by Anna Akua Minta, (CDC/CGH/GID)

Community-based Surveys are Informing Local Cessation Smoking Campaigns for Indigenous Australians

Project leader Alyson Wright surveys a community member in Central Australia.

Australia is a global leader in tobacco control, with a continuous comprehensive strategy initiated in the late 1980s that includes advertising restrictions, price increases, plain packaging, and mass media campaigns. However, after three decades, limited progress has occurred with regard to smoking prevalence among Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. Cigarette smoking prevalence among Read More >

Posted on by Alyson Wright, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National UniversityTags , ,

How Senegal is tracking the Silent Killer

The scene outside a health clinic entrance in Dakar, Senegal. Photo credit: Dr. Monica LaBelle

How Senegal is tracking the Silent Killer At a packed clinic in the middle of Dakar, Senegal, a busy nurse secures a blood pressure cuff around a patient’s arm. “After I take the blood pressure, I record it here,” the nurse says enthusiastically, showing a patient treatment card to Dr. Monica LaBelle, a CDC Foundation Read More >

Posted on by Bethany Hall, MPH

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative History Project: Documenting the Eradication of Polio

L to R: Oral Historian Hana Crawford, Project Manager Mary Hilpertshauser, Archivist Laura Frizzell

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a partnership led by five organizations: the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of GPEI is to eradicate polio worldwide. Based at the David Read More >

Posted on by Oral Historian Hana Crawford, Project Manager Mary Hilpertshauser, Archivist Laura FrizzellTags , , , ,

Tetanus: Eliminating the Forgotten, Deadly Disease

FETP Resident Pheobe Hilda Alitubeera searching for tetanus cases in health facility registers.

As a clinician, seeing a patient with a preventable disease like tetanus is heartbreaking. The most common signs are painful spasms of the muscles of the jaw (lockjaw) and spine. But, in the worst cases, tetanus impairs breathing, and without medical intervention, nearly 100% of patients die. Tetanus rarely occurs in the U.S. because we’ve Read More >

Posted on by Dr. Rebecca Casey, EIS Officer, Global Immunization DivisionTags , , , ,

Preventing Cervical Cancer in Cambodia: Evaluating the HPV Vaccination Demonstration Project

A nine-year old girl and her grandmother being interviewed in Svay Rieng province about her knowledge on HPV vaccine

Cervical cancer claims the lives of a quarter of a million women every year with almost nine out of ten deaths occurring in developing countries.   Cervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus that can cause cancers in the mouth, throat, and reproductive tract, as well as genital warts. Safe and effective vaccines Read More >

Posted on by Julie Garon, MPH - Vaccine Introduction Team, GIDTags , , ,