We continue to recommend flu vaccine as the single best way to protect yourself against the flu. The vaccine will protect against strains covered in the vaccine, and it may have some effectiveness in the drifted strains.
— Tom Frieden
Flu can be serious, and it kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. Vaccination is easier and more convenient than ever, so get yourself and your family protected.
The more we look at drug resistance, the more concerned we are. It basically shows us that the end of the road isn't very far away for antibiotics.
It is remarkable how surprising Zika has been. This is the first time we have had a mosquito-borne infection that can cause a devastating birth defect.
I eat a lot of fruit because if I fill up on strawberries or an apple, then I'll have one small piece of cheesecake rather than two big pieces.
CDC is supporting community efforts by establishing competitive grants to support local programs to help individuals and families to get healthy and stay healthy.
Reducing MRSA infections is critical because these bacteria are difficult to treat and are common in healthcare settings, especially among ICU (intensive care unit) patients.
In addition to pain, disability, and disfigurement, lymphatic filariasis carries a heavy social cost. Those disfigured by the disease are often shunned. Women are often rejected by their families. Both men and women can have difficulty finding jobs.
Women should use pain medication only as directed and talk with their doctor about all drugs they're taking, including over-the-counter medications. Store prescription drugs in a secure place and properly dispose of them as soon as treatment is over. And never share prescription drugs with anyone else.
Thanks to malaria elimination efforts in United States in the 1940s, most people in the U.S. today have never had any direct contact with the disease, and most doctors have never seen a case. That success means it's easy to have a relaxed attitude about protecting ourselves.
Our progress against malaria is impressive. But vigilance remains a critical ingredient to protect the health of all people.
Cigars, cigarettes, and hookah tobacco are all smoked tobacco - addictive and deadly. We need effective action to protect our kids from struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine.
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.
We do prioritize addressing MDR-TB. We have done that for more than 20 years; that's why we've been able to drastically reduce U.S. cases of MDR-TB.
A vaccine that prevented tuberculosis would merit a Nobel Prize, but it's just very difficult to develop.
What works most effectively for quelling disease outbreaks like Ebola is not quarantining huge populations. What works is focusing on and isolating the sick and those in direct contact with them as they are at highest risk of infection. This strategy worked with SARS, and it worked during the H1N1 flu pandemic.
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.
Too many U.S. adults have a heart age years older than their real age, increasing their risk of heart disease and stroke. Everybody deserves to be young - or at least not old - at heart.
The United States has made remarkable progress in reducing both teen pregnancy and racial and ethnic differences, but the reality is, too many American teens are still having babies.
From all the available evidence, the body has an excellent immune response to Zika. Therefore, once you get it once, you will never get it again.
The way we work in public health is, we make the best recommendations and decisions based on the best available data.
When my son was little, he asked me: 'Daddy, which is worser, sugar or salt?' I still don't know the answer.
Communities across the nation play an important role in leading the way toward healthier families, and the Affordable Care Act helps make prevention an important priority for every community.
Some hospitals screen all ICU patients and isolate those with MRSA, a process that can be challenging for both caregivers and patients.
At CDC, we work 24/7 to save lives and protect people.
Using prescription drug monitoring programs is an important step in identifying patients who may be improperly using prescription painkillers.
Between 2000 and 2010, malaria mortality rates fell by 26 percent around the world. According to the latest World Health Organization estimates, there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660,000 deaths.
In 2011, at least a third of middle school and high school students who smoked cigars used flavored little cigars. Six states - Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Wisconsin - already have youth cigar smoking rates that are the same or higher than youth cigarette smoking.
Vaccines and antibiotics have made many infectious diseases a thing of the past; we've come to expect that public health and modern science can conquer all microbes. But nature is a formidable adversary.
I loved clinical practice, but in public health, you can impact more than one person at a time. The whole society is your patient.
The importance in what we're seeing in countries around the world is a poorly regulated and poorly functioning private sector using irrational and ineffective medications that result in the emergence of drug-resistance tuberculosis. What we've done is begun a program to rapidly improve infection control in places that are treating TB patients.
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.
We know how to stop Ebola: by isolating and treating patients, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and breaking the chains of transmission.
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.
Vaccination is the single most important step people can take to protect themselves from influenza.
It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently.
The Zika virus invades and disrupts the development of the fetal brain, but the effects on the brains of infants and young children are unknown.
Pregnant women who are in places where Zika is spreading should do everything they can to avoid mosquito bites. And we, as a society, need to do everything we can to control Zika. That means learning more about it; that means controlling mosquitoes more effectively. That means achieving a vaccine.
We want people to take responsibility for how healthy they are, and we want to help them live longer, healthier lives.
MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is an important cause of healthcare-associated infections.
Haiti is not an easy place to fight disease, even in the best of times. That was true even before a devastating earthquake ravaged Haiti's capital and largest city, Port-au-Prince, in 2010.
As director of the CDC, one of the best parts of my job is announcing good news.
Health care providers can follow guidelines for responsible painkiller prescribing and talk with their patients about the risks and benefits of taking prescription painkillers.
People traveling to malaria-prone areas can protect themselves by taking steps such as taking antimalarial drugs, using insect repellent, sleeping under insecticide-treated bed-nets, and wearing protective clothing.
Tobacco marketing often reaches children and youth and entices them to start using tobacco while they are still at an impressionable age. Nearly four out of five high school cigarette smokers will become adult smokers, even if they intend to quit in a few years. By the time they want to quit, they're hooked.
New, unfamiliar, and mysterious threats to our health are scary. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - where we identify, on average, one new health threat each year - we work around the clock with an approach that prioritizes finding out what we need to know as fast as we can to protect Americans.
I love... cheesecake in New York. I love whatever is sweet.
Stopping TB requires a government program that functions every day of the year, and that's hard in certain parts of the world. And partly it's because of who tuberculosis affects: It tends to affect the poor and disenfranchised most.
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.
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.
