Global Community Should Focus On ‘Continuous Surveillance,’ Prevention Of Infectious Diseases

NPR: Has The World Learned The Wrong Lessons From The Ebola Outbreak?
Nahid Bhadelia, infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center and director of infection control at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory

“…[W]e need continuous surveillance for threatening infectious diseases that are both known and yet to be discovered. We need to move from a culture of outbreak response to one that focuses on prevention. Small clusters of infectious disease cases are inevitable, but outbreaks and epidemics are preventable. … WHO has a difficult balance to strike between celebrating the hard work of stopping Ebola and continuing to urge a need for vigilance. … The best way to keep new cases of infectious diseases from causing epidemics is to expect them and to invest in public health and research during ‘peace time’ as much as we do during an outbreak” (1/19).

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