We had a single find of BSE in this country. And we believe that what we're doing is appropriate action taken in an abundance of caution under the circumstances. And I believe it's the right thing to do.
In 2009, when I was Health Minister, we re-engineered our business processes to examine the weaknesses and opportunities in our health system. Following that exercise, we established a public health emergency management system from national to district level to prevent and provide rapid response to outbreaks.
I believe we have to nip Ebola in the bud before it spreads through Africa and to other countries.
One of my first priorities as a new member of Congress in 2019 was to visit the CDC and learn firsthand about what they needed to help protect Americans. After my visit, I learned their budget had previously been cut, and that they needed funding to modernize their data systems to help prevent pandemics and other public health crises.
Soon after joining the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, I was called upon as part of team to respond to a malaria outbreak. My team was dispatched to a village in southwestern Ethiopia, where I not only observed the malaria epidemic's shocking effects on adults and children but also experienced it first-hand.
I'm for increased funding for the Centers for Disease Control.
The lack of U. S. Capability to rapidly recognize, respond, and recover from a biological attack is the most significant failure identified in this report card. Especially troubling is the lack of priority given to the development of medical countermeasures … the vaccines and medicines that would be required to mitigate the consequences of an attack.
We can't predict when infectios diseases will break out, but their breakout is inevitable. That is why we must be prepared.
In the U.S, Zika outbreaks are hopefully going to be easy to isolate. The biggest threat is likely to be from the fear Zika sows, especially among expectant moms.
In the ongoing effort to combat Ebola, more needs to be done to rewrite the public-health narrative. It must move from one that has been infused with fear to one that recognizes the hope for survival that supportive care can offer infected people.
Perhaps the CDC should quit spending money on things like jazzercise, urban gardening, and massage therapy and direct that money to where it's appropriate in protecting the health of the American people.
Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.
Since the first large Zika outbreak ever recognized, in 2007, the CDC has had boots on the ground responding. Our laboratories have developed a test that can confirm Zika in the first week of illness or in a sample from an affected child.
The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly 'cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.
If we can provide even a few months of early warning for just one pandemic, the benefits will outweigh all the time and energy we're devoting. Imagine preventing health crises, not just responding to them.
The world is really figuring BSE out, and that's positive.
Great Britain had a much different situation than we do and did here in the United States, in that they had literally thousands of infected animals with human health risks. Their infectivity in this disease happened before very much was known about it.
New and emerging infections keep coming back and the world needs a collective defense system, and that requires international cooperation and collaboration, in the name of global solidarity.
Doctors and nurses, with their training and their experiences, they would be able to detect unusual patterns of disease. That's why we say it is important for every country to have a proper surveillance system. The function of the surveillance system is to detect unusual patterns of diseases.
Previous efforts to eradicate malaria failed for several reasons, including political instability and technical challenges in delivering resources, especially in certain countries in Africa.
For the first time in history we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time. Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour.
As an integral part of the Department of Agriculture, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service monitors our Nation's agriculture to protect against agricultural pests and diseases.
I love that the work that we do is so vital to science. We're in a lot of ways at the scientific front line. The work that we're doing to build up the computational defense system for infectious diseases, whether it's finding the vaccine as fast as possible this time or next time to detect early outbreaks.
In 1967, the world health community launched a global effort to eradicate smallpox. It took a coordinated, worldwide effort, required the commitment of every government, and cost $130 million dollars. By 1977, smallpox had disappeared.
I think Tom Frieden, the CDC director, is a good man, is a good doctor and, I think, basically has done a good job.
