Category: infectious disease
Stopping Viruses that Don’t Respect Borders
CDC’s Global Immunization Plan In the first seven months of 2016 alone, 13 states reported outbreaks of measles, a highly infectious disease that killed 400 to 500 Americans a year and hospitalized nearly 50,000 more as recent as the 1950s. With the advent of the measles vaccine, routine immunizations, and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Read More >
Posted on byThink NoHep this World Hepatitis Day
“Viral hepatitis – a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E – affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic liver disease and killing more than 1.4 million people every year, mostly from hepatitis B and hepatitis C. It is estimated that only 5% of people Read More >
Posted on by 2 CommentsGlobal Immunization: 50 Years of Work, Humanity, and Success
This blog was originally posted on MyAJC.com on April 26, 2016. Government is a creature of numbers and statistics, a generator of such vast quantities of data and reports that it’s hard to appreciate sometimes the full human dimension of what it takes to protect everyone from vaccine-preventable diseases. That reality comes to mind as Read More >
Posted on by 3 CommentsThe “Ride” To Eliminating Malaria In Haiti
CDC works with Haiti and the Dominican Republic to eliminate malaria by 2020. #endmalaria #WMD2016 Tweet This The town of Dame Marie on the southwestern tip of Haiti, is 225 miles from the country’s teeming, chaotic capital Port-au-Prince. But getting there by car—on a good day—can easily take eight hard-fought, kidney-bashing, hairpin-turning hours. That may Read More >
Posted on by 3 CommentsPresident Obama’s Call to Accelerate Battle Against Malaria Builds on Impressive Gains
Malaria is a public health issue that has always been one of our highest priorities. Tweet This President Obama’s call to arms to end malaria worldwide as announced during his recent State of the Union address and the Administration’s request to increase resources for malaria control, underscore the remarkable progress made in the fight against Read More >
Posted on byThe challenge of global antibiotic policy: Improving access and preventing excess
Antibiotic resistance has been making headlines lately, and for good reason: the identification of new resistance genes, rising resistance rates and widespread public misunderstanding of the problem are all causes for concern about the growing proliferation of drug-resistant “superbugs.” But in many low- and middle-income countries, millions of people lack access to antibiotics and common Read More >
Posted on byCDC director: What we’re doing about the Zika virus
This blog was originally posted on CNN.com on February 1, 2016 (CNN) Vaccines and antibiotics have made many infectious diseases a thing of the past; we’ve come to expect that public health and modern science can conquer all microbes. But nature is a formidable adversary. And Zika is our newest threat, particularly to pregnant women. New, unfamiliar Read More >
Posted on byCDC Poised to Answer President Obama’s Call to End Malaria
In his State of the Union address January 12, President Obama issued an emphatic call to arms to end malaria worldwide. Here, at CDC, we know that attacking malaria and moving aggressively to eliminate a disease that killed 438,000 people last year worldwide is a goal worthy of its mention in the State of the Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentTwo Vaccines for One Polio-free World
Polio was once considered one of the most frightening diseases in the world until a team led by Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first successful polio vaccine. World Polio Day, held every October 24 to celebrate Salk’s birthday, is an opportunity for everyone working to eradicate polio to renew their commitment to creating a polio-free Read More >
Posted on by 6 CommentsSeptember 28 is World Rabies Day
Rabies! It is one of the most feared diseases in the world, and for good reason. Rabies has a fatality rate of nearly 100%, and it causes the most human deaths of any zoonotic disease, that is, diseases which can be spread between animals and humans. Each year, an estimated 59,000 people die from rabies Read More >
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