Marion Koopmans: greater regional capacity to fight disease outbreaks

摘要

A: An emerging disease or pathogenis a disease that is new, or has beendetected in a new region or with manifestationsthat differ from what was previouslyrecognized. I’ve been investigatingoutbreaks for much of my career, but Ifirst experienced the major public healthimpact of an emerging infectious diseasesoutbreak in 2003, when we had a largeavian influenza (A) H7N7 outbreak inthe Netherlands and I was responsiblefor national laboratory preparedness andresponse. I realized how fast such eventscan develop, the difficulty of workingwith an unknown disease and the challengeof ensuring a coordinated responsebetween veterinary and public healthexperts. We thought we were prepared,but it was not easy. Since then, I foundsimilar challenges in the responses tothe severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS) outbreak in 2003, a Marburgvirus importation in 2008, other avianinfluenza virus outbreaks when the influenza(A) H5N1 viruses started to spreadfrom China, and in the responses to Ebolavirus disease, Middle East RespiratorySyndrome (MERS) and Zika.