Preventing Emerging Infectious Diseases: A Strategy for the 21st Century: Overview of the Updated CDC Plan

• Published in: MMWR. Recommendations and reports 1998-09, Vol.47 (RR-15), p.i-14
• Main Authors: Binder, Suzanne, Levitt, Alexandra M., Aguilar, Judith R., Bell, David M., Cetron, Martin S., Chamberland, Mary E., Eberhard, Mark L., Gubler, Duane J., Hickson, Meredith A., Kaplan, Jonathan E., Khabbaz, Rima F., LeDuc, James W., Maloney, Susan A., Martin, William J., Mawle, Alison C., McConnon, Patrick, Meltzer, Martin I., O'Connor, Siobhán, Parkinson, Alan J., Schuchat, Anne, Solomon, Steven L., Tauxe, Robert V., Tenover, Fred C., Tsai, Theodore F., Wainwright, Robert B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Disease outbreaks; Disease transmission; Emerging diseases; Epidemiology; Infections; Infectious diseases; Preventive medicine; Public health; Surveillance; Tuberculosis
• ISSN: 1057-5987; 1545-8601

Societal, technological, and environmental factors continue to have a dramatic effect on infectious diseases worldwide, facilitating the emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of old ones, sometimes in drug-resistant forms. Modern demographic and ecologic conditions that favor the spread of infectious diseases include rapid population growth; increasing poverty and urban migration; more frequent movement across international boundaries by tourists, workers, immigrants, and refugees; alterations in the habitats of animals and arthropods that transmit disease; increasing numbers of persons with impaired host defenses; and changes in the way that food is processed and distributed. Several recent health events underscore the need for a public health system ready to address whatever disease problems that might arise. For example, in 1997, an avian strain of influenza that had never before infected humans began to kill previously healthy persons in Hong Kong, and strains of Staphylococcus aureus with diminished susceptibility to the antibiotic vancomycin were reported in Japan and the United States. In addition, researchers recently discovered that a strain of the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) had been infecting humans for at least 20 years before AIDS Ø emerged as a worldwide epidemic. Preventing Emerging Infectious Diseases: A Strategy for the 21st Century describes CDC's plan to combat today's infectious diseases and prevent those of tomorrow. It represents the second phase of the effort launched in 1994 with the publication of CDC's Addressing Emerging Infectious Disease Threats: A Prevention Strategy for the United States. This overview of the updated plan outlines specific objectives under four major goals: a) surveillance and response, b) applied research, c) infrastructure and training, and d) prevention and control. Achieving these objectives will enhance understanding of infectious diseases and bolster their detection, control, and prevention. The plan also targets nine categories of problems that cause human suffering and place a burden on society. The aim of this plan is to build a stronger, more flexible U.S. public health system that is well-prepared to respond to known disease problems, as well as to address the unexpected, whether it be an influenza pandemic, a disease caused by an unknown organism, or a bioterrorist attack. The implementation of this plan will require the dedicated efforts of many partners, i