Categories: Global Health
March 4th, 2013 11:12 am ET -
Thais dos Santos, Advisor, Health Surveillance and Disease Prevention, PAHO/WHO Office for Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Countries
Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States received nearly 1.5 million tourists in 2012 alone according to the Caribbean Tourism 
Organization. Considering their total population of just under one million, this means that there were more people passing through than people actually living in this region. This is a region with a lot of mobility, both of people looking to enjoy the beautiful sites as well as transit between the islands. In this context of movement of people and goods, the current International Health Regulations (IHR) become a cornerstone in providing an effective framework for collaboration among international partners in containing public health risks and in minimizing their impact on travel and trade.
Since the entry into force of the IHR in 2007, the Pan American Health Organization, Regional Office of the World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has been supporting countries and territories of the Americas to reach a minimum set of core capacities for early detection and response to health events. In doing so, PAHO/WHO has engaged a variety of partners who have ample experience and expertise on core capacity building, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is the only WHO Collaborating Centre for the Implementation of IHR National Surveillance and Response Capacity.
Workshop participants Group Shot
Risk communication is among the core capacities detailed in the IHR and involves health communication, health education, public affairs, behavior change communication, and social mobilization.
A training workshop on risk communication was jointly organized by the Ministry of Health of Dominica, CDC’s Center for Global Health and PAHO in Dominica on February 20-22. The objectives of the workshop were to promote effective risk communication as one of the essential public health emergency functions, present the challenges of risk communication and when responding to a public health emergency, characterize the components of emergency risk communication, propose assessment criteria to measure and track progress in this area of work, and share principles for the development of a practical action plan for their organization to improve capacity for risk communication during public health emergencies
Thirty-two professionals were trained from broad disciplines and sectors, but are all involved in public health response. In addition to professionals from Dominica, representatives from Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also participated in the workshop. The training was done through the use of simulation exercises, placing the participants in a mock scenario, where a major infectious disease threat unfolds in a hypothetical land. The role-playing presented risk communication concepts in an engaging way, and participants appeared enthused and encouraged that the principles could be adopted as part of their routine practice.
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization
February 24th, 2013 10:51 pm ET -
Scott Dowell, MD, MPH, RADM, USPHS
Ten years ago this month, I was living in Bangkok, Thailand when the world was stunned by the spread of sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). At that time, I was helping to establish the first International Emerging Infections Program with a small group of CDC and Thai colleagues. We saw first-hand the effects of SARS on our patients and our friends, the fear it created in the general public, and the cost to economies throughout Asia. Since then, we have experienced the H5N1 bird flu virus spread, the novel H1N1 influenza pandemic, and numerous other global disease outbreaks.
Global health security aims to protect Americans and others around the world from emerging infectious disease outbreaks – whether natural, intentional, or accidental. Through strategic investments in basic public health systems including effective and adequate laboratories, information systems, trained personnel, and effective response strategies, effective control of epidemics is possible. We have seen it happen.
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Categories: Global Health, HIV/AIDS
February 17th, 2013 9:04 pm ET -
This is the first in our “Fresh Voices From the Field” series, where we hear from ASPH Global Health Fellows working throughout the world. Global Health Fellows are recent Master of Public Health or Doctoral graduates placed in CDC global health offices in Atlanta and abroad. They work on a range of priority public health issues and bring a fresh perspective to CDC’s efforts in the field.
Edward Vallejo earned his Master of Public Health degree in Quantitative Methods: Epidemiology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey while working as a microbiologist at the UMDNJ Center for Emerging Pathogens. He has conducted biomedical research with the Russian Federal Space Agency in Moscow, Russia and volunteered as a relief worker in Haiti and the Philippines. He is from Cranford, New Jersey.
Edward Vallejo, ASPH/CDC Global Strategic Information Fellow
Does having access to clean water, stable electricity, and freedom from the fear of contracting an infectious disease make your list of major health and safety concerns? If you live in the developed world, the answer is most likely no, but for the last four months, I have been working in the West African country of Nigeria, where those issues and an ever-changing security situation are a regular part of my daily life. As a member of CDC Nigeria’s Strategic Information Team, my focus has been on HIV/AIDS, the global pandemic that is a leading cause of death for the 170 million people living in Africa’s most populous country.
Less than a month after arriving, I helped to coordinate a large-scale HIV/AIDS service and data quality assessment that involved 40 public health physicians, epidemiologists, strategic information and database specialists traveling to 18 medical facilities across the country. These personnel from CDC Nigeria, CDC Atlanta, the University of California at San Francisco, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and the Nigerian Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program developed a detailed picture of the current state of services and data in those facilities. As a result, established and future programs will benefit from our recommendations, especially in preventing mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS, an area in which Nigeria carries a substantial burden.
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Categories: Global Health, HIV/AIDS
February 11th, 2013 9:44 am ET -
Debbi Birx, MD
As we usher in the New Year, I am struck by the incredible gains made – especially in the last 12-24 months – in the fight against HIV/AIDS and the key role the United States has played. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), under the leadership of the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC), has helped pave the way to historic progress. The U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Eric Goosby, has strategically guided the implementation of PEPFAR by leveraging scientific advances, innovation, and the strengths of each PEPFAR implementing agency to ensure the greatest health impact.
Photo: David Snyder/CDC Foundation
Unprecedented results
This impact was confirmed in the UNAIDS 2012 global report. New HIV infection rates have fallen by 50% or more in 25 countries with an additional 14 countries having achieved incidence declines ranging from 25% to 49%. Half of all reductions in new HIV infections are among children, reflecting strong progress towards the elimination of mother-to-child transmission.
These unprecedented results also show increasing momentum over recent years as evidence-based, high-impact prevention interventions have been scaled-up. Importantly, the report also demonstrated that in a very small number of countries, stalling the expansion of HIV services can reverse hard won gains.
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Categories: Global Health, HIV/AIDS, polio
February 1st, 2013 12:00 pm ET -
For more than 30 years, the US CDC has worked with China on public health issues that have benefited people of all nations. Together our nations proved the benefits of folic acid which saved children around the world from birth defects. We are exploring novel approaches to HIV prevention, testing and treatment. We are researching risk factors for cardiovascular disease – one of the world’s leading causes of death. Along with other nations, China and the US are working together on influenza surveillance to better protect the world.
This week, I had an opportunity to discuss these achievements with my colleague Dr. Wang Yu, Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). The US CDC and China CDC Directors meet annually to decide our mutual priorities, explore ways to share what we’ve learned with other nations and expand upon our collaborative successes. This was the tenth anniversary of the US-China CDC Directors meeting that allowed for reflection on a few key 10-year benchmarks.
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Categories: Global Health, Malaria, Parasites
January 28th, 2013 12:48 pm ET -
Twenty five years ago, I went to western Kenya as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer to study an outbreak of severe anemia. No one was sure of the cause. Was it parvovirus, or exposure to an environmental toxin, perhaps? In the hospital there were five or six sick children to a bed, and they were so anemic that their blood looked more like a pinkish fluid than the rich red to which we are accustomed. As it turned out, there was no exotic cause. I was seeing the ravages of drug-resistant malaria at a time when chloroquine, the routinely used antimalarial drug, was failing globally.
That kind of grim hospital scene is much rarer these days, thanks to the enormous investment in malaria programs in Africa over the past decade and the improvements these investments have made possible. Programs that provide proven interventions—artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs), and indoor residual spraying (IRS)—have achieved a 33% reduction in malaria deaths in the African region and 1.1 million lives saved globally. We have much more to do, but this is a reason to celebrate. As we celebrate, however, we must realize that we are also in the midst of a very fragile situation for three major reasons.
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Categories: Global Health, Health Systems Strengthening
December 27th, 2012 4:20 pm ET -
Nathan H
Season’s Greetings! As we come to the close of 2012 and embrace 2013, I wanted to reach out and let you know that CDC has reached an important milestone in training global health leaders. We’re celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Sustainable Management Development Program (SMDP) — a program that CDC developed in 1992 to assist ministries of health in low- and middle-resource countries strengthen their health management systems.
To kick-off the 20th Anniversary celebration, we hosted a webinar on December 11th and invited all of our graduates from the Global Health Leadership Forum (Forum) and the Management for Improved Public Health (MIPH) to join the webinar and share their experiences. I was so pleased to see that graduates from all over the world participated in the webinar and shared powerful stories about how the Forum and the MIPH program have been of value in helping them make sound decisions as they progressed in their careers.
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Categories: Children in Adversity, Global Health
December 19th, 2012 9:00 am ET -
CDC welcomes the implementation of the U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity. At the heart of the Action Plan is the dedication to reducing violence against children, along with its vast, common, destructive and preventable consequences, including HIV, chronic diseases, and mental health problems. CDC is committed to working alongside other USG agencies and an array of global partners to help assure that children not only survive, but also thrive, growing up in strong families, with safe, stable and nurturing relationships. CDC’s work with Together for Girls, funded through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is just one example of such partnerships.
CDC’s uniquely valuable contribution to the Action Plan consists in linking nationally representative survey data on the magnitude and impact of violence against children to effective, sustainable, and scalable 
programs that reduce violence and its consequences. The need for these Violence Against Children Surveys, which have been conducted in Swaziland, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Haiti, is strong and growing. The data from these surveys increase countries’ abilities to create and evaluate violence prevention efforts and to help victims and their families.
CDC will continue to support the objectives of the Action plan through partnerships that help nations around the world invest effectively in the futures of their children.
Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization, Kenya, polio
October 23rd, 2012 4:46 pm ET -
Victoria Gammino
The CDC “Nomads Project” was piloted in northern Nigeria in 2011 and brought to scale in 2012 through funding from USAID. The concept is now being piloted by CDC-Kenya in collaboration with CDC’s Global Immunization Division. In addition to bilateral government and NGO partners in Kenya and Nigeria, CDC collaborates with colleagues from WHO, UNICEF, and FAO as part of CDC’s effort to eradicate polio.
Health care systems are designed to meet the needs of the population in the communities where they exist, generally addressing the most urgent health needs, and providing services in a culturally familiar context. But what if that “community” is a mobile one? Many of the things we take for granted — continuity of care or even familiarity with the language and customs among health care providers — can vary from region to region.
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Categories: Global Health, HIV/AIDS
July 26th, 2012 12:01 pm ET -
This week, as scientists and public health partners meet at the International AIDS Society (AIDS 2012) meeting in Washington, D.C., one of the key challenges for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is to continue to increase the numbers of individuals on antiretroviral therapy (ART) while making sure that those who are currently on ART get quality care.
Increasing access to improved clinical management in resource-limited settings and identifying persons on ART whose treatment is beginning to fail is a key area where CDC, one of the key U.S. agencies implementing PEPFAR, brings its public health research and evaluation expertise to the table. Through research supported by PEPFAR, CDC in partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the Kenya Ministry of Health and Sanitation will present at AIDS 2012 the results of three studies on viral load (VL) testing and illustrate how treatment access and outcomes can be improved.
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Organization. Considering their total population of just under one million, this means that there were more people passing through than people actually living in this region. This is a region with a lot of mobility, both of people looking to enjoy the beautiful sites as well as transit between the islands. In this context of movement of people and goods, the current International Health Regulations (IHR) become a cornerstone in providing an effective framework for collaboration among international partners in containing public health risks and in minimizing their impact on travel and trade.
