Читать книгу Principles of Virology, Volume 2 - Jane Flint, S. Jane Flint - Страница 41

The establishment of vigilant surveillance procedures that can shorten the period between the beginning of an epidemic and its detection is crucial to mitigating the impact of an outbreak. One could argue that the development of worldwide surveil lance programs and information sharing have had as profound an impact on limiting viral infections as antiviral medications and vaccines. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was established in 1946 after World War II, with a primary mission to prevent malaria from spreading across the country. The scope of the CDC quickly expanded, and this institution is now a central repository for information and biospecimens available to epidemiologists; it also offers educational tools to foster awareness and ensure public safety. The World Health Organization (WHO), founded in 1948 as an international agency of the United Nations, is charged with establishing priorities and guidelines for the worldwide eradication of viral agents. The WHO provides support to countries that may not have the resources to combat infectious diseases, and coordinates results from a global network of participating laboratories. While the WHO provides coordination, the experimental work is performed in hundreds of laboratories throughout the world, often in remote locations, which process samples and relay information back to the WHO. These WHO-certified laboratories adhere to stringent standards to ensure consistency of methods and interpretations. The laboratories conduct field surveillance using wild and sentinel animals, and perform periodic blood screening for signs of infection or immunity (Box 1.8). The chief successes of such global-surveillance efforts to date include the eradications of smallpox virus and rinderpest virus, the latter of which causes disease in agricultural animals, such as cattle and sheep.