The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services,and is headquartered in Atlanta,Georgia.
Julie Louise Gerberding is an American infectious disease expert who was the first woman to serve as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of May 2022,she is the CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). Gerberding grew up in Estelline,South Dakota,attended Brookings High School,and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Case Western Reserve University. She was the chief medical resident at the University of California,San Francisco where she treated hospitalized AIDS patients in the first years of the epidemic. Gerberding became a nationally-recognized figure during the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States during her tenure as the acting deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases,where she was a prominent spokeswoman for the CDC during daily briefings regarding the attacks and aftermath. Gerberding then served as CDC director from 2002-2009,and was then hired as an administrator at Merck.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton,New Jersey,the foundation focuses on access to health care,public health,health equity,leadership and training,and changing systems to address barriers to health. RWJF has been credited with helping to develop the 911 emergency system,reducing tobacco use among Americans,lowering rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies,and improving perceptions of hospice care.
The index case or patient zero is the first documented patient in a disease epidemic within a population,or the first documented patient included in an epidemiological study. It can also refer to the first case of a condition or syndrome to be described in the medical literature,whether or not the patient is thought to be the first person affected. An index case can achieve the status of a "classic" case study in the literature,as did Phineas Gage,the first known person to exhibit a definitive personality change as a result of a brain injury.
Nancy Lynn Snyderman is an American physician,author,and former broadcast journalist. She served as a medical correspondent for ABC News for 15 years,and was the chief medical editor for NBC News from 2006 to 2015,frequently appearing on the Today show,NBC Nightly News and MSNBC to discuss medical-related issues. Snyderman is also on the staff of the otolaryngology-head and neck surgery department at the University of Pennsylvania,located in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania.
Thomas R. Frieden is an American infectious disease and public health physician. He serves as president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives,a $225 million,five-year initiative to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic,caused by the H1N1/swine flu/influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010,was the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus. The first identified human case was in La Gloria,Mexico,a rural town in Veracruz. The virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1 that resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird,swine,and human flu viruses which further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus,leading to the term "swine flu".
Howard Markel is an American physician and medical historian. At the end of 2023,Markel retired from the University of Michigan Medical School,where he served as the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the University's Center for the History of Medicine. He was also a professor of psychiatry,health management and policy,history,and pediatrics and communicable diseases. Markel writes extensively on major topics and figures in the history of medicine and public health.
Ebola,also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF),is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates,caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after infection. The first symptoms are usually fever,sore throat,muscle pain,and headaches. These are usually followed by vomiting,diarrhoea,rash and decreased liver and kidney function,at which point some people begin to bleed both internally and externally. It kills between 25% and 90% of those infected –about 50% on average. Death is often due to shock from fluid loss,and typically occurs between six and 16 days after the first symptoms appear. Early treatment of symptoms increases the survival rate considerably compared to late start. An Ebola vaccine was approved by the US FDA in December 2019.
The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease,centered in West Africa,was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region,mainly in Guinea,Liberia and Sierra Leone. The first cases were recorded in Guinea in December 2013;the disease spread to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone,with minor outbreaks occurring in Nigeria and Mali. Secondary infections of medical workers occurred in the United States and Spain. Isolated cases were recorded in Senegal,the United Kingdom and Italy. The number of cases peaked in October 2014 and then began to decline gradually,following the commitment of substantial international resources.
An Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone occurred in 2014,along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. At the time it was discovered,it was thought that Ebola virus was not endemic to Sierra Leone or to the West African region and that the epidemic represented the first time the virus was discovered there. However,US researchers pointed to lab samples used for Lassa fever testing to suggest that Ebola had been in Sierra Leone as early as 2006.
An epidemic of Ebola virus disease occurred in Liberia from 2014 to 2016,along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone. The first cases of virus were reported by late March 2014. The Ebola virus,a biosafety level four pathogen,is an RNA virus discovered in 1976.
Four laboratory-confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease occurred in the United States in 2014. Eleven cases were reported,including these four cases and seven cases medically evacuated from other countries. The first was reported in September 2014. Nine of the people contracted the disease outside the US and traveled into the country,either as regular airline passengers or as medical evacuees;of those nine,two died. Two people contracted Ebola in the United States. Both were nurses who treated an Ebola patient;both recovered.
Organizations from around the world responded to the West African Ebola virus epidemic. In July 2014,the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an emergency meeting with health ministers from eleven countries and announced collaboration on a strategy to co-ordinate technical support to combat the epidemic. In August,they declared the outbreak an international public health emergency and published a roadmap to guide and coordinate the international response to the outbreak,aiming to stop ongoing Ebola transmission worldwide within 6–9 months. In September,the United Nations Security Council declared the Ebola virus outbreak in the West Africa subregion a "threat to international peace and security" and unanimously adopted a resolution urging UN member states to provide more resources to fight the outbreak;the WHO stated that the cost for combating the epidemic will be a minimum of $1 billion.
This article covers the timeline of the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa and its outbreaks elsewhere. Flag icons denote the first announcements of confirmed cases by the respective nation-states,their first deaths,and their first secondary transmissions,as well as relevant sessions and announcements of agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO),the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC),and NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders;medical evacuations,visa restrictions,border closures,quarantines,court rulings,and possible cases of zoonosis are also included.
The Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS) is an aeromedical evacuation capability devised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and government contractor Phoenix Air between 2007 and 2010. Its purpose is to safely air-transport a highly contagious patient;it comprises a transit isolator and an appropriately configured supporting aircraft. Originally developed to support CDC staff who might become infected while investigating avian flu and SARS in East Asia,it was never used until the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa,transporting 36 Ebola patients out of West Africa.
Syra Madad is an American pathogen preparedness expert and infectious disease epidemiologist. Madad is the Senior Director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health + Hospitals where she is part of the executive leadership team which oversees New York City's response to the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the city's 11 public hospitals. She was featured in the Netflix documentary series Pandemic:How to Prevent an Outbreak and the Discovery Channel documentary The Vaccine:Conquering COVID.
Science diplomacy is the collaborative efforts by local and global entities to solve global issues using science and technology as a base. In science diplomacy,collaboration takes place to advance science but science can also be used to facilitate diplomatic relations. This allows even conflicting nations to come together through science to find solutions to global issues. Global organizations,researchers,public health officials,countries,government officials,and clinicians have previously worked together to create effective measures of infection control and subsequent treatment. They continue to do so through sharing of resources,research data,ideas,and by putting into effect laws and regulations that can further advance scientific research. Without the collaborative efforts of such entities,the world would not have the vaccines and treatments we now possess for diseases that were once considered deadly such as tuberculosis,tetanus,polio,influenza,etc. Historically,science diplomacy has proved successful in diseases such as SARS,Ebola,Zika and continues to be relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic today.
