CDC’s “Our Global Voices”: Preventing Local Outbreaks from Becoming Global Pandemics: FETP Enhances Capabilities to Track Diseases and Stop Them at the Source
David Sugerman, assistant professor at Emory University, commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, and medical officer at the CDC, discusses CDC’s Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs) and the role residents and trainees have played in addressing outbreaks and emerging disease threats in their home countries, writing, “Having a well-trained public health workforce on the ground, prepared to quickly detect and respond to health threats and stop them at their source is essential. Establishing FETPs and having trained disease detectives on the ground, is our best frontline defense against public health emergencies and threats. CDC stands with them, ever-ready to face known and unknown disease threats” (4/17).