Other Diseases Did Not Rest During COVID-19

Protecting Health in 2020. NCEZID Progress Report.

The COVID-19 response is the largest and longest in CDC history. But the virus that causes COVID-19 wasn’t the only infectious disease that CDC responded to last year. Diseases like those caused by the Marburg virus and antibiotic-resistant bacteria didn’t go away because of the pandemic.

The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) deployed 1,736 staff who devoted 1.35 million hours to the COVID-19 response in 2020. At the same time, the center worked to protect people in other important areas. NCEZID details its activities in the Protecting Health in 2020 NCEZID Progress Report.

The COVID-19 response

The magnitude of CDC’s COVID-19 response was reflected in last year’s raw data. People viewed CDC’s COVID-19 webpages over 2.3 billion times. They used the Coronavirus Self-Checker over 40 million times.

About 1,500 staff, including members of NCEZID, deployed nearly 3,000 times to about 250 cities in the United States and other countries. NCEZID also set records in the amount of funding it awarded. It gave $11 billion to 64 public health departments to help fight the spread of COVID-19.

An NCEZID lab ran 6,417 pathology tests to study COVID-19’s damage on a cellular level. The Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) program built a national network of more than 600 scientists to track COVID-19’s spread using genetic data while keeping track of new variants.

Over the course of years, NCEZID successfully encouraged 90 percent of U.S. health departments to switch to electronic laboratory reporting. This has paid off during the pandemic response by enabling health departments to send more COVID-19 testing and other data more quickly to CDC.

Other threats

Scientists think that the virus that causes COVID-19 likely circulated in bats before making its way to humans. NCEZID scientists monitor bats for emerging disease threats. Last year, they found an especially deadly strain of Marburg virus circulating in fruit bats in Sierra Leone. Marburg virus disease causes hemorrhaging and other Ebola-like symptoms but is often deadlier than Ebola.

Melioidosis, a life-threatening bacterial disease, infected a few people in the United States last year. Catching it in the country is unusual. Infected people usually get the disease on trips abroad. NCEZID researchers found evidence that melioidosis could be an emerging threat in the U.S.

Other researchers used genetic sequencing data to explore why gastric cancer caused by bacteria afflict Alaskan Native people more than other people.

Years of public health and healthcare measures have reduced infections with antibiotic-resistant germs, but they are still a threat. CDC is spearheading an action plan in communities where infections are on the rise.

The threat of Ebola typifies NCEZID’s dual mission of preparing for and responding to disease threats. Last year, two outbreaks were declared over. Now, two new outbreaks threaten two African countries. Experience gained in last year’s responses will help prepare this year’s Ebola responses.

About NCEZID

NCEZID is one of the national centers, institutes, and offices that together make up CDC. NCEZID protects people from domestic and global health threats, including:

  • Foodborne and waterborne illnesses
  • Infections that spread in hospitals
  • Infections that are resistant to antibiotics
  • Deadly diseases like Ebola and anthrax
  • Illnesses that affect immigrants, migrants, refugees, and travelers
  • Diseases caused by contact with animals
  • Diseases spread by mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas

NCEZID has led efforts to prepare for and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. Its staff includes subject matter experts in bacterial, viral, and fungal pathogens and infectious diseases of unknown origin.

 

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Responding to Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease Threats in 2017

Montage of photos. From left: a photo of different raw foods, including salmon, fruits and vegetables. A photo of a boy taking an oral vaccine. A photo of bacteria growing in petri dish.

Photo of Rima F. Khabbaz, MD, Director, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Rima F. Khabbaz, MD, Director, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases

The fungal superbug Candida auris causes serious and often fatal infections. It can strike people in the places where they seek care—hospitals and other healthcare facilities. In early 2016, we knew about outbreaks of C. auris infections on multiple continents, but we were not sure whether C. auris was in the United States. Fast forward to 2017: C. auris is a priority for public health workers in the United States, and CDC, along with state and local health departments, has tracked more than 200 cases of C. auris infection in the country. Our experts have worked with healthcare facilities across the nation to implement infection control measures and stop transmission.

The progress to track and prevent C. auris is just one example of the important work experts from CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) tackled in 2017. Some of the other highlights from the NCEZID 2017 Accomplishments report are described below.

A tremendous year for public health

Summarizing last year’s major efforts was a difficult task. The numbers alone depict a tremendous year for public health. Here are just a few examples.  CDC sequenced nearly 45,000 DNA samples by using Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) technologies. The agency identified more than 1,100 illnesses that were associated with backyard flocks—the highest number ever recorded by CDC in a single year. And the Antibiotic Resistance Lab Network performed more than 12,000 tests to contain the spread of resistant infections, just to name a few accomplishments.

Tracking new and evolving threatsCDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) focuses on emerging diseases and diseases spread between animals and people. Our experts work around the clock to identify, track, control and prevent some of the deadliest diseases on the planet. This work includes tracking diseases across the globe and at home, developing innovations, investigating disease outbreaks in extreme conditions, and helping experts prepare for infectious disease threats.

Every day we are learning more about antibiotic resistance, which continues to be among the biggest health concerns in our country. In 2017, CDC took several important steps to combat antibiotic resistance, including rolling out a containment strategy to slow the spread of drug-resistant diseases in healthcare facilities—starting with a single case—and supporting 25 innovators through a CDC pilot project to develop solutions to antibiotic resistance crises.

Understanding the impact

We are also learning more about Zika virus. Zika was often in the headlines in 2016 and 2017, and the mosquito-borne virus continues to be a threat, especially for pregnant women and their fetuses. Last year, CDC experts shed light on a lesser-known effect of Zika virus infection: a link with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), an uncommon illness of the nervous system. In 2017, CDC and partners conducted the first case-control study in the Americas that showed evidence linking Zika virus infection and GBS. This was just one of many vector-borne diseases CDC tackled in 2017.

Responding to new outbreaks

As we continued to work on lingering threats like antibiotic resistance and Zika, CDC also responded to new outbreaks in 2017, both at home and abroad. In the United States, we saw a range of illnesses connected to food products—from Salmonella infections linked to papayas to an Escherichia coli outbreak from soy nut butter. For the first time, scientists linked an outbreak of Seoul virus infections to pet rats in the United States, and AMD lab techniques proved critical in tracing this and other outbreaks. CDC scientists traveled across the globe in 2017 to investigate a myriad of outbreaks, including an outbreak of anthrax infections in animals in Namibia that posed a threat to human health. Experts helped respond to yellow fever outbreaks in countries including Brazil, and we continue that work today as the yellow fever outbreak in Brazil has expanded over the past two years and could affect US travelers.

Like CDC’s response to yellow fever outbreaks, much of last year’s work continues in 2018. We are closely tracking emerging infections like C. auris, continuing to study the effects of unusual diseases like Zika, and investigating and containing outbreaks of infections caused by a wide range of microbes such as Salmonella bacteria, monkeypox virus, and hemorrhagic fever viruses.

Want to learn more? Read the full NCEZID 2017 Accomplishments report, and follow NCEZID on Twitter @CDC_NCEZID.