Immunization Newsbriefs

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April 9, 2001

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Disease Detectives”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/apr01/marchione08040701.asp) (04/08/01) P. 1J;

Marchione, Marilyn

Later this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) will celebrate its 50^th anniversary.  Much like a cross between the FBI and the Peace Corps, EIS trains officers in biostatistics and field investigations and then gives out two-year assignments in a state health department or CDC center.  Some of the situations EIS officers have had to deal with include investigating the threat of biological warfare; restoring public confidence in the polio vaccine by linking 260 polio cases to unsafe vaccines from a single lab, not all polio vaccines; setting up surveillance and control measures to ward off the Asian flu epidemic; and helping to eradicate smallpox in Africa, with the last case found in Somalia in 1977.

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