Ten years of global disease detection and counting: program accomplishments and lessons learned in building global health security

摘要

IntroductionWorldwide, infectious diseases continue to emerge at an alarming pace, due to numerous factors including microbial adaptation, increasing human population migration, urbanization, conflict and instability, intensified animal-human interface, and habitat perturbation [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The litmus test for an effective national public health program is its ability to be ready to initiate an effective response for an unknown emerging or re-emerging infectious disease or public health event. The most impactful global health programs are built with the understanding that they must be able to help countries strengthen core public health capacity so that new threats can be detected and contained before they become international crises that increase morbidity and mortality, adversely impact the health and livelihoods of individuals and populations, disrupt travel, interfere with global trade and economies, or even lead to political destabilization [6, 7].This is the basis for all global health security work and has been the mission of CDC’s Global Disease Detection (GDD) program since its inception in 2004. As one of the first steps through which CDC systematically approached global health security, the GDD program was designed to bring resources together to promote a broader approach to preparing countries for any infectious disease threat that could occur [8]. Today, after more than a decade of partnerships in groundbreaking science, disease detection, and response to the world’s most urgent public health threats, lessons from the GDD program as a precursor to global health security offer the global health community one model for collective success. This supplement is dedicated to highlighting a sample of successes achieved and lessons learned through the GDD program throughout its 10+ years of implementation.