Infectious Diseases Travel Fast and Far
Because of the nature of infectious diseases, everyone remains vulnerable – including in the United States – until every country in the world can rapidly identify and contain public health threats. In today’s tightly connected world, a disease can be transported from any remote village to any major city on any continent in as little as 36 hours1. Recent disease outbreaks have demonstrated that a disease threat anywhere is a disease threat everywhere.
Emerging disease threats: Emerging disease threats persist. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. More than two years later, the world is still battling COVID-19. COVID-19 has underscored the gaps in global health security preparedness processes and continues to require stronger global health security response.
Updated COVID-19 data can be found here: CDC COVID Data Tracker: Home
Measles: The WHO reported the 2019 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as “the world’s worst measles epidemic,” with the death toll surpassing 6,000 people[3]. Due to the 2019 Ebola outbreak and then onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s health organizations had to split attention and resources. As a result, measles cases are increasing worldwide.
Ebola Virus Disease: From 2018-2020, the DRC faced the world’s second largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. This outbreak is second only to the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, when three countries – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – suffered large-scale spread of the disease, with seven additional countries, including the United States, also reporting cases. The death toll of the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic reached more than 11,000[4].
Polio: Poliovirus, a vaccine-preventable disease, is a persistent threat and has remained a public health emergency of international concern since 2014[5]. Fragile states and insecure areas pose a continued threat to global health security. Due to the magnitude of COVID-19 response, many countries diverted resources from polio vaccination programs. As a result, polio cases increased worldwide.
Zika: In 15 months throughout 2015-2016, Zika virus spread to 68 countries and territories, including the U.S. [6].
Investing in Global Health Security
CDC is investing in global health security to make the United States and the world safer and more secure from infectious disease threats.
Securing global health, ensuring domestic preparedness, eliminating disease, and ending epidemics are top priorities for CDC. CDC has minimized public health threats by improving public health preparedness at home and abroad. In 2014, the United States helped to launch GHSA, seeking to accelerate progress toward a world that is safe and secure from infectious disease threats and to promote global health security as an international priority. As part of the U.S. Government’s commitment to GHSA, CDC invested in 19 partner countries to strengthen and sustain public health readiness to contain outbreaks at their source: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam.
What CDC Does
CDC supports four foundational areas that underlie all aspects of global health security: surveillance systems, laboratory systems, workforce development, and emergency management and response. CDC assistance to partner countries has resulted in substantial improvements to their readiness to combat infectious disease threats.
Examples of CDC’s activities relating to these four essential public health functions include:
- Supporting surveillance systems that enable disease tracking and reporting
- Creating faster and more accurate data sharing
- Helping to build better laboratory systems
- Training an elite public health workforce of disease detectives
- Establishing and improving emergency operations centers (EOCs) that can respond more quickly to all public health events and National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) that provide sustainable infrastructure for preparedness activities
[1] Jonas, O. (2013). Pandemic Risk. The World Bank. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTNWDR2013/Resources/8258024-1352909193861/8936935-1356011448215/8986901-1380568255405/WDR14_bp_Pandemic_Risk_Jonas.pdf.
[2] World Health Organization. (2019). New measles surveillance data from WHO. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/immunization/newsroom/new-measles-data-august-2019/en/.
[3] Deaths from Democratic Republic of the Congo measles outbreak top 6000. (2020, January 7). Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.afro.who.int/news/deaths-democratic-republic-congo-measles-outbreak-top-6000.
[4] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). 2014-2016 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/2014-2016-outbreak/index.html
[5] Statement of the Twenty-Third IHR Emergency Committee Regarding the International Spread of Poliovirus. (2020, January 7). Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/07-01-2020-statement-o-the-twenty-third-ihr-emergency-committee-regarding-the-international-spread-of-poliovirus.
[6] Ikejezie J, Shapiro CN, Kim J, et al. (2017). Zika Virus Transmission — Region of the Americas, May 15, 2015–December 15, 2016. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep, 66(12):329–334.
