Over and over, nature shows that it's a really tough adversary. That's why it's important that we invest in laboratories, disease detectives, research, mosquito control, the public health system around the world to find, stop, track, prevent health threats.
Controlling mosquitos is tough. It's not quick; it's not easy. It requires work day in and day out to track where mosquitos are and to apply safely the appropriate mosquito control methods.
Every health threat has a different nature and characteristic and appropriate response. Zika is a particular risk to pregnant women who reside in or thinking of traveling to places where Zika is spreading.
It's understandable that when something new comes out that's unfamiliar, scary, and has severe outcomes, it gets a lot of media attention. In fact, the Zika outbreak is unprecedented. We've never before identified a mosquito-borne infection that can cause fetal malformations.
If we vaccinate well, if we increase those vaccination rates, we can stop measles just as we stopped it before.
The bottom line is, if you're pregnant, don't travel to an area where Zika is spreading.
Congress did the right thing with Ebola. They funded us to protect Americans and keep us safer.
The way Zika spreads is primarily through the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in places that don't have screens and air-conditioning.
The bottom line is that Ebola is hard to treat, and when the first patient ever with Ebola came to the United States, we thought the guidelines would protect the health care workers.
I think we didn't recognize how hard it would be to care for someone with Ebola who was desperately ill in the U.S., and how much hands-on nursing care there would be, and we didn't expect two nurses to get infected.
We have to keep up our guard. We won't get the risk of Ebola to zero in the U.S. until we stop it in West Africa. And Ebola is hard to fight. It requires intensity. It requires speed and flexibility.
We have learned a lot about how to treat Ebola, how to ensure that the people caring for people with Ebola do so minimizing their risk of infection.
We know how to stop Ebola: by isolating and treating patients, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and breaking the chains of transmission.
In addition to not stopping the spread of Ebola, isolating countries will make it harder to respond to Ebola, creating an even greater humanitarian and health care emergency. Importantly, isolating countries won't keep Ebola contained and away from American shores.
The first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States has caused some to call on the United States to ban travel for anyone from the countries in West Africa facing the worst of the Ebola epidemic. That response is understandable. It's only human to want to protect ourselves and our families.
A vaccine that prevented tuberculosis would merit a Nobel Prize, but it's just very difficult to develop.
Since the first large Zika outbreak ever recognized, in 2007, the CDC has had boots on the ground responding. Our laboratories have developed a test that can confirm Zika in the first week of illness or in a sample from an affected child.
Using prescription drug monitoring programs is an important step in identifying patients who may be improperly using prescription painkillers.
As director of the CDC, one of the best parts of my job is announcing good news.
At CDC, we work 24/7 to save lives and protect people.
