Capacity-building efforts by the AFHSC-GEIS program

Abstract

Capacity-building initiatives related to public health are defined as developing laboratory infrastructure, strengthening host-country disease surveillance initiatives, transferring technical expertise and training personnel. These initiatives represented a major piece of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, Division of Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (AFHSC-GEIS) contributions to worldwide emerging infectious disease (EID) surveillance and response. Capacity-building initiatives were undertaken with over 80 local and regional Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Defense, as well as other government entities and institutions worldwide. The efforts supported at least 52 national influenza centers and other country-specific influenza, regional and U.S.-based EID reference laboratories (44 civilian, eight military) in 46 countries worldwide. Equally important, reference testing, laboratory infrastructure and equipment support was provided to over 500 field sites in 74 countries worldwide from October 2008 to September 2009. These activities allowed countries to better meet the milestones of implementation of the 2005 International Health Regulations and complemented many initiatives undertaken by other U.S. government agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State.

Economic optimization of a global strategy to address the pandemic threat

“…wrote the paper. development programs to address underlying socioeconomic drivers (17,18) and promote behavioral change in at-risk populations (7,18); and that increase farm biosecurity to reduce the risk of novel zoonoses originating in wildlife or livestock, particularly in EID hotspot countries (14,19).…”

The emergence of a new corona virus—MERS-CoV: Hind sight is always 20/20

“…In fact, the documentation of the epidemiology of infectious outbreaks is well known and speculations of future emergent pathogens do exist [2,3]. Despite our knowledge of the history of epidemics and pandemics it is very difficult to prevent such adversities [4].…”

Quantifying Trends in Disease Impact to Produce a Consistent and Reproducible Definition of an Emerging Infectious Disease

“…Emerging diseases are generally considered those that have recently increased in impact, moved into new geographic regions, moved into human hosts for the first time, changed their clinical presentation with more severe symptoms, or are caused by newly evolved pathogens [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. These “emerging infectious diseases” or “EIDs” have become the focus of national [14], regional and global [15], [16], [17], [18], [19] control programs.…”