Category: Brazil

Routine Monitoring Reveals COVID-19 Surge in Brazil

Roberto Jorge Freire Esteves, MD, MPH

Brasilia, BRAZIL – A native of Brazil and a medical epidemiologist by training, I joined the CDC South America Regional Office on August 31, 2020, as its Senior Technical Advisor. The global pandemic had been going on for most of 2020, and I remember the sense of dread I had when I first heard about Read More >

Posted on by Roberto Jorge Freire Esteves, MD, MPH; Senior Technical Advisor in the CDC South America Regional Office in Brasilia, Brazil
Categories COVID-19
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Diverse Group of Atlanta Experts Support COVID-19 Field Team in Brazil

CDC epidemiologist Mateusz Plucinski (right) organizing dried blood spots collected during a household survey in Nampula, Mozambique in 2013 aimed at assessing the impact of a bed net distribution campaign on malaria and lymphatic filariasis exposure. Photo by Mateusz Plucinski/CDC.

When CDC staff go into the field to investigate outbreaks, a diverse group based in Atlanta supports their every move. Scientists create research protocols, logistics coordinators handle travel and lodging, someone looks for funds to pay for the work. I am an epidemiologist. Earlier this year, as the Atlanta lead for a team that deployed Read More >

Posted on by Mateusz Plucinski, PhD, MPH, CDC Epidemiologist1 Comment
Categories COVID-19
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Going Home to Brazil to Investigate a New COVID-19 Variant was Enormously Rewarding

Dr. Juliana de Fatima da Silva hold fruit she received from grateful participants in the COVID-19 research study in Parintins, Brazil.

MANAUS, Brazil – I was born and raised in Brazil, near the city of São Paulo. There, I got a medical education at a top institution, a privilege very few have. When I decided to come to the United States to pursue residency and training, it was not without some self-doubt. I knew the opportunities Read More >

Posted on by Juliana de Fatima da Silva, MD, Medical epidemiologist6 Comments
Categories COVID-19
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World Cup serving as real-world test for new disease detection technology

World Cup soccer ball

    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 Ilanit Kateb, MBA, Public Health Advisor, CDC Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) Branch1 Comment
Categories Archive, global disease detection, global health security, health systems strengthening, infectious disease
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September 29 is World Heart Day!

  In honor of World Heart Day, the CDC Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention was asked to write commentary on the work the CDC is doing worldwide in reducing the morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases. The theme of this year’s World Heart Day is one that touches everyone—the cardiovascular health of Read More >

Posted on by Barbara Bowman, Ph.D., Director, Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC
Categories Archive, cardiovascular disease, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), women's/maternal health
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Haiti is Saying Goodbye to Lymphatic Filariasis, In Spite of Earthquake

  Our teams gave a two-medicine dose to Haitians in our capital city, Port-au-Prince—but most people had no water to swallow the pills. How would we overcome the ongoing cholera outbreak and displacement from the 2010 earthquake to finally rid Haiti of the horribly disfiguring and painful disease called lymphatic filariasis?  Lymphatic filariasis, sometimes known Read More >

Posted on by Valery E. Madsen Beau De Rochars, MD, MPH Assistant Professor at University of Florida
Categories Archive, child health, mosquito-borne disease, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), parasitic diseases
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