Afghanistan

Disease Follows Conflict

By |2017-02-10T09:50:01-07:00November 1st, 2013|Preparedness, Prevention|

Throughout human history, war and political unrest have been associated with the spread of disease, often called the “third army”.  During the Napoleonic wars, 8 times more people in the British army died from disease than from battle wounds.  In our Civil War, 66% of the 660,000 deaths among soldiers were caused by pneumonia, typhoid, [...]

Comments Off on Disease Follows Conflict

We Nailed Smallpox- Why Not Polio?

By |2017-02-10T09:50:54-07:00October 24th, 2012|Preparedness, Prevention|

Today is World Polio Day so I thought I’d throw together this post to give you an update on where we are in the global eradication effort.  2012 has been a good year so far- as the global public health system has made some real progress.  This year we’re down to only 3 countries with [...]

Comments Off on We Nailed Smallpox- Why Not Polio?

Global Polio Eradication- The Ongoing Push

By |2017-02-10T09:51:22-07:00December 30th, 2011|Prevention|

Public health efforts eradicated smallpox from the globe in the late 1970s.  The last naturally occurring case was in Somalia in 1977 (followed by a couple of lab accident cases in 1978).  Public health’s sites have been set on Polio eradication for the last couple of decades.  We got close a couple of times, but [...]

Go to Top