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Although safeguarding U.S. health is a domestic goal, its achievement requires international action and cooperation. This is because U.S. health and global health are inextricably linked. As the AIDS epidemic has illustrated, a disease that emerges or reemerges anywhere in the world can spread far and wide. With increased rates of air travel and international trade, infectious microbes have many opportunities to spread across borders, whether carried by businessmen and tourists, by mosquitos that hitchhike on airplanes, or by exotic animals imported as pets or livestock. Microbes have additional opportunities for spread on international shipments of fruits, meats, fish, or vegetables. The international dimension of the effort to combat infectious diseases is reflected in CDCs growing international role. Whenever a new, highly dangerous, drug-resistant, or reemerging disease is detected anywhere on the globe, U.S. citizens, as well as foreign governments, have come to rely on CDC to provide assistance and public health information. Established diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, as well as vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, demand increasing attention and resources as well. This increased international engagement has stimulated CDC to rethink its infectious disease priorities, keeping in mind that it is far more effective to help other countries control or prevent dangerous diseases at their source than try to prevent their importation. This document, Protecting the Nations Health in an Era of Globalization: CDCs Global Infectious Disease Strategy, represents an important advance in defining CDCs evolving global mission and in considering how CDC and its international partners can work together to improve global capacity for disease surveillance and outbreak response. We look forward to working with our many partners throughout the nation and the world as we put this strategy into practice. Jeffrey P. Koplan, M.D., M.P.H. |
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Date published: 2002 |
National
Center for Infectious Diseases |