Tag: Tom Frieden

US CDC begins agency-wide changes after pandemic failures

Volume 400, Issue 10365
19 November 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  An independent review made several recommendations for improving the public health agency. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is on a mission to reorganise and modernise itself, so that its mistakes during the pandemic will not happen again. The aim is to make the nation’s leading disease detective more nimble and accountable, and fortify its role as public health protector. But although some changes have been made, progress will be limited without support from Congress. [Continued here.] 
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US global health leadership hangs on election result

lancet cover 2Volume 388, Number  10055 

22  October 2016 

WORLD REPORT   On most issues, the US presidential candidates have polar opposite views; engagement in global health is no different.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

Americans will choose their next president in less than 3 weeks and yet some global health experts still wonder what would happen to the international health programmes that the USA has championed in recent decades if the Republican contender, Donald Trump, is elected. The uncertainty comes despite the Ebola virus and Zika virus threats that made global health front-page news.  [Continued here] …

Zika response threatened by funding shortage

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 14 March 2016The Lancet USA blog logo

Congress hasn’t budged in the five weeks since President Barack Obama asked Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to deal with the Zika virus. But Zika isn’t waiting.

In the weeks since the president’s request, the number of cases of the mosquito-borne virus among people who traveled to countries where transmission has been confirmed has almost quadrupled to 193, as of March 9. It is in nearly twice as many states — 32 and the District of Columbia — with Florida, New York and Texas topping the list. In Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, the number of cases is 174, or 19 times higher, reports the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  [continued here]  …

Congress Wrangles Over Funding for Zika Research

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 12th February 2016

President Barack Obama asked Congress this week for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding The Lancet USA blog logoto respond to Zika virus and administration officials wasted no time in explaining why at four congressional hearings less than two days later.

While such Capitol Hill visits are part of the budget process, the looming virus adds a new urgency to the proceedings–though not necessarily enough to deter controversy. [Continued here]…

US federal health agencies questioned over Ebola response

image Volume 384, Issue 9953, 25 October 2014

WORLD REPORT A congressional inquiry into the handling of Ebola in the USA has sparked new guidance to protect health-care workers. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

As US President Barack Obama ramped up the country’s response to the Ebola crisis domestically and abroad (panel), his top health officials attempted, during a tense congressional hearing last week, to address potential solutions to the epidemic ravaging west Africa, which has now reached the USA, confronting emergency medical providers at a well regarded hospital in Dallas, Texas.

But the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, which undertook the inquiry, did not seem particularly interested in discussing additional long-term investments in medical research—there is currently no cure for the disease—or the need to shore up, if not create, health-care infrastructure in the west African countries where more than 4500 people have died of the disease.

“To protect the USA, we have to stop it at the source”, said Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at the hearing. “There is a lot of fear of Ebola, and…one of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the health care we give for a long time to come.” [MORE full text or PDF ] …