Category: infectious disease
CDC Scientist Fights Chikungunya
One of the most telling signs of the complexity surrounding chikungunya is that educating people on pronouncing the name correctly is perhaps the easiest challenge. I’m exposed to that truth more than most. And for the record, it’s pronounced chick-un-goon-ya. As a research microbiologist for CDC’s National Center for Emerging Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases, my Read More >
Posted on by 3 CommentsWorld Cup serving as real-world test for new disease detection technology
With the World Cup underway in all its frenzied glory, you can be forgiven for missing another major effort currently underway in Brazil that represents the first large scale, real-life, real-world test of important new technology. And no, it’s not the goal-line technology that’s being used for the first time at soccer’s biggest Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentPolio Eradication, Microplanning and GIS
Geospatial data have been used in public health since John Snow mapped cholera cases around the Broad Street water pump during the London cholera epidemic of 1854. And, while global positioning system technologies (GPS) are so ubiquitous in the United States that virtually all new smartphones, tablets and cars have this technology embedded, in many Read More >
Posted on by 5 CommentsCDC Staffers Take No Refuge From Helping Refugees Around the World
For anybody wondering why CDC has a branch dedicated to helping refugees or why the United Nations has formally recognized World Refugee Day every year since it was created in 2001, the answer can be found in a single, stark statistic: In 2013, a person became a new refugee or internally displaced person every Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentCommunication Matters in Global Health Deployments
Communication matters. That’s not a new idea. Many of us have learned this the hard way. This concept is being applied in a new, more comprehensive way for a key purpose—to help the World Health Organization (WHO) communicate more effectively, with more clarity and purpose during humanitarian and public health emergencies. The idea is to Read More >
Posted on byVoices from the Central African Republic: FELTP residents remain committed to strengthening disease surveillance and outbreak response in CAR
The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa, bordered by Chad in the north, Sudan in the northeast, South Sudan in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the south and Cameroon in the west. CAR is one of the world’s least developed Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentCDC Protects Families: My favorite stories
As we celebrate families on Mother’s Day, May 11, and the International Day of Families, May 15, I am especially proud to work in CDC’s Center for Global Health. As one of the Center’s health communication specialists, I have the privilege to write or edit many stories about how CDC’s programs impact the lives of Read More >
Posted on byMozambique FELTP fellows evaluate impact of malaria bed net campaign
Four Mozambican epidemiologists-in-training spent a month walking up to ten kilometers a day to make sure that one of the most effective malaria control interventions was reaching the poorest Mozambicans. Malaria is the leading cause of death in Mozambique, and insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the key malaria control measures. Since 2007, the U.S. Read More >
Posted on byVaccination: Your best shot
In 2002, I was in Maracaibo, Venezuela assisting with the investigation of the last measles outbreak in South America when the news arrived: Ministers of health from the region agreed that a synchronized week of vaccination in the hemisphere would help prevent future outbreaks and increase access to immunization for many who would miss this Read More >
Posted on byApril 7 is World Health Day
On this Page Malaria The Reality of Outbreak Investigations: Dengue in Angola Chagas disease and the kissing bug Lymphatic filariasis: Spotlight on elimination in Haiti April 7 marks World Health Day. This year World Health Day focuses on vector-borne diseases. More than half the world is at risk from vector-borne diseases. What exactly is a Read More >
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