partner profile

As CDC ’ slead onlaboratorysupportforthe GlobalHealthSecurity Agenda ( GHSA ), what are you hoping to achieve ?

That ’ s a big question . The short answer is , eliminate the need for me . Our goal literally is altruistic and lofty , way up on the mountain , trying to get the world compliant with the International Health Regulations ( IHR ). Revised IHR guidelines were approved in 2005 , and all signatories to this legally binding document are supposed to be compliant by June 2016 . But we ’ re not ready globally . We aim to help countries be self-sufficient because pathogens know no borders . We want them to know they can share information ; it is not an indictment of your country if you have a disease outbreak . We want everyone to be interconnected to other countries and regions . Then we won ’ t have to be the 911 or 411 for public health emergencies .

Andwhatareyourbiggestchallenges ?

That ’ s easy . It ’ s always the same no matter where you go : time and money . Time equates to having enough hours in the day with people and not do things quickly to simply “ check the box .” The second aspect , money , could be funding to help travel people for training or provide equipment or have enough staff to work with people who need assistance . Quite frankly , the US government does miracles with what the US tax payers provide . And when you look at the state labs , what some of them are able to accomplish is even more miraculous . I use our own Georgia public health laboratory as an example ; they are absolutely phenomenal . I quite frankly at times don ’ t know how states manage it with their limited resources .

DoyoureallythinkwecaneverattaintheGHSAvisionofaworld “ secure from infectious disease threats ?”

Yes , I do . Is it a huge and idealistic goal , of course . But it can be done . Just look at the Americas . We ’ ve eliminated smallpox from the very northern reaches of North America all the way down to Tierra del Fuego . We were the first in the world to eliminate polio and measles and rubella , and we ’ re on the way to eliminating malaria and onchocerciasis . This is a public health success story that is still , to my knowledge , largely unsung . And if we can do it here — with all the different economies and education levels and public health systems — we can do elsewhere .

How can US public health laboratories support CDC and other partnersworkingtowardGHSAgoals ?

That ’ s so easy . Just keep doing what they ’ re doing . APHL is one of our key implementing partners , not just in the US , but around the world . APHL is also a model . For example , the state laboratories are models for other countries on how to set up their own systems . The US public health laboratory system was built up over a century or more and tried by fire . We know what works . APHL and its members have been helping with everything from wet bench training to systems analysis to setting up “ twinning ” and mentoring relationships that go on for years . It ’ s been an amazing partnership , and one we are gratified for .

As youknow , APHLis developingaPublicHealthLaboratoryService FellowshipinpartnershipwithCDC . Whyis thissoimportant ?

We need to train the next generation of public health laboratorians , and APHL has so much experience doing this . This type of fellowship is critical for low- and middle-resource countries to give them the next generation of leaders or programs will not be truly sustainable . A case in point , which was so surprising to me coming out of an academic environment , is a country I visited and worked in did not have a single PhD program in the entire country . They did not have an accredited “ med tech ” program . So the questions is : Where do you get your basic laboratory scientist , not just to do the bench work , but also to manage the laboratory ? Most of the people working in the laboratory did not have the background to do that . They would expend large amounts of money and effort to send people abroad for training , usually to the US . The problem is that many times those people didn ’ t want to come back , resulting in a brain drain . When they came to CDC for training , they viewed it as coming to Disney World - a magical kingdom of public health . They say , We can never achieve that back home . I always point out that CDC started with rented space in downtown Atlanta in 1946 . Everything has to begin somewhere . So the APHL fellowship will grow that next generation of bench scientists and mid-tier and upper-tier managers who will build and sustain laboratories . In the end , it ’ s the people who make the laboratory technology successful , and APHL ’ s participation in this process is simply mission critical .

So I know we can . Is it going to take a long time ? Yes . Is it worth doing ? Yes . One of the seminal moments in my career was when I arrived in Egypt and watched a child dying from rabies . Human rabies is almost non-existent in the US . I had two [ Egyptian ] staff members who had survived polio , a disease that was only textbook for me . This is why we need to achieve the goals of the GHSA .