Our Global Voices Posts
Promoting access to and use of clean and safe water to stop hepatitis E
My name is Dr. Matthew Goers, an Epidemic Intelligence Service (or EIS) officer with CDC’s Division of Global Health Protection. Our division works with other countries and international organizations to respond to international disasters, disease outbreaks, and humanitarian crises. In September of 2017, Namibia began reporting sporadic cases of acute jaundice, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Read More >
Posted on byThirty years of a Unique Partnership to End Polio-GPEI
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 byGetting to the Heart of the Matter in Latin America and the Caribbean
“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 byRapid Detection Accelerates India’s Response to Nipah Outbreak
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 byZambia: A regional leader in NPHI development and emergency management
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 byCDC works with countries to identify children infected with hepatitis B virus and generate the evidence for hepatitis B vaccine birth dose introduction
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 byCommunity-based Surveys are Informing Local Cessation Smoking Campaigns for Indigenous Australians
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 byHow Senegal is tracking the Silent Killer
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 byThe Global Polio Eradication Initiative History Project: Documenting the Eradication of Polio
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 byTetanus: Eliminating the Forgotten, Deadly Disease
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 >
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