Timeline of CDC’s Global Health Milestones from
1942-2021
- Timelineicon
1942
CDC’s predecessor—the Office of Malaria Control in War Areas (MCWA)—was created to control malaria around military bases in the Southeastern U.S.
- Timelineicon
1951
Malaria was eliminated in the U.S.
- Timelineicon
1958
CDC sent a team of Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers to Southeast Asia to work on smallpox and cholera outbreaks. This was CDC’s first technical support mission to Southeast Asia.
- Timelineicon
1967
The Foreign Quarantine Service joined CDC.
- Timelineicon
1973
CDC began regularly responding to public health crises abroad by providing famine assistance in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Timelineicon
1976
CDC sent disease detectives to investigate two large outbreaks of an unknown, deadly hemorrhagic fever in Zaire (DRC) and Sudan. This disease is now known as Ebola.
- Timelineicon
1979
CDC established the WHO Lassa fever Collaborating Center in Sierra Leone.
- Timelineicon
1980
CDC supported the launch of the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP) in Thailand, the first one outside of North America.
- Timelineicon
1980
CDC initiated the global campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease.
- Timelineicon
1980
The 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox, marking a landmark achievement in global health.
- Timelineicon
1981
CDC MMWR published a report of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in five previously healthy young men in Los Angeles, California. This would later become known as the first published scientific account of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
- Timelineicon
1988
The worldwide Polio Eradication Initiative launched, spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, CDC, and UNICEF.
- Timelineicon
1999
CDC established the Stop Transmission of Polio (STOP) Program to train and deploy international public health field staff to assist national immunization programs with polio investigation, surveillance, and planning of vaccination activities.
- Timelineicon
2000
CDC established the Global AIDS Program.
- Timelineicon
2000
CDC launched DPDx—an online resource for diagnostic assistance and training in laboratory identification of parasites.
- Timelineicon
2000s
H5N1 influenza started spreading among humans in the late 1990’s, with several outbreaks occurring around the world throughout the 2000’s.
- Timelineicon
2001
CDC, with American Red Cross, UNICEF, UNF and WHO, founded the Measles Initiative (expanded to include rubella elimination in 2011), becoming M&RI.
- Timelineicon
2002
Endemic measles eliminated in the Region of the Americas.
- Timelineicon
2003
SARS-associated coronavirus is first discovered in Asia. CDC responded by providing guidance for surveillance, clinical and laboratory evaluation, and reporting.
- Timelineicon
2003
CDC began to play a leading role in the newly announced U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest commitment by any nation to address one disease.
- Timelineicon
2005
The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) was created. Led by USAID and co-implemented with CDC, PMI aims to reduce malaria deaths and morbidity, with a long-term goal of eliminating malaria in 24 countries in Africa as well as three in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.
- Timelineicon
2007
CDC launched the Global Disease Detection Operations Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Timelineicon
2010
CDC established the Center for Global Health.
- Timelineicon
2011
CDC launched its National Public Health Institutes (NPHI) program in partnership with the International Association of National Public Health Institutes and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Timelineicon
2011
CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to respond to polio.
- Timelineicon
2014
CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center to coordinate assistance and disease control activities related to the largest Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa.
- Timelineicon
2015
CDC launched the Global Rapid Response Team (GRRT) to rapidly respond to global public health concerns, both within the United States and around the world.
- Timelineicon
2016
CDC’s Emergency Operations Center was activated for Zika virus disease.
- Timelineicon
2018
CDC worked closely with the Ministry of Public Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and additional partners to respond to multiple Ebola outbreaks.
- Timelineicon
2020
WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11th, 2020. CDC is responding to COVID-19 and building on decades of global collaboration by deploying the GRRT domestically and serving as credible scientific and technical experts with international partners and partner country governments for COVID-19 science and public health practice.
- Timelineicon
2020
The WHO African Region was certified free of all wild poliovirus.
- Timelineicon
2021
WHO recommended the new RTS,S malaria vaccine for broader use. CDC’s years of collaboration—including most recently with the RTS,S pilot introduction in Kenya—contributed to the WHO recommendation and helped pave the way for wide scale implementation of this promising new intervention.