In 2014, when Ebola was claiming the lives of thousands in West Africa, the CDC developed special response teams to be deployed anywhere in the United States should the Ebola virus strike. Building off this experience, the agency has created new, more comprehensive response teams that are now being used in the nation's fight against Zika, according to Kaiser Health News.
Here are three things to know about CDC's response teams and their role in the agency's preventative efforts against Zika.
1. The teams are officially called CDC Emergency Response Teams or CERT. For the Zika response, these teams consist of epidemiologists, scientists with Zika-specific backgrounds, entomologists, vector technicians, communications specialists and public health scientists. The agency's 2014 Ebola teams were comprised of medical officers, epidemiologists, infection control specialists and analysts.
2. In Miami, where local transmission of the Zika virus in the U.S was first detected, CERT has been conducting interviews, collecting data, trapping mosquitoes and working to assuage the fears of the community.
3. After receiving information regarding the first death in U.S. states linked to Zika, the CDC deployed CERT to Salt Lake City to conduct a thorough investigation. The investigation intensified after it was discovered the elderly man who died had likely transmitted Zika to his son in an unknown mode. CERT conducted an epidemiological evaluation of family contacts, blood tests of healthcare workers and community members who may have come into contact with the elderly man and mosquito surveillance in the area, yet were unable to ascertain the mode of transmission, leaving the possibility of transmission via bodily fluids like saliva or tears open. Tests revealed the initial infected party had levels of Zika in his blood 100,000 times the typical infection rate.
4. The money to fund CERT during the Zika response has come from $222 million in repurposed funds. Tom Frieden, MD, the director of the CDC, told Kaiser Health News via email that the absence of funding support from the federal government has not yet hindered the CDC's efforts in the Zika response, but the funding dearth could become problematic in the near future.
"We're in peak mosquito season right now and if more states see local transmission, CDC's resources will be stretched thin as we help respond in multiple areas," said Dr. Frieden. "But it's not too late, and we are hopeful that Congress will do the right thing, as they have with Ebola, for example."
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