Thomas R. Frieden Quotes

In spite of the tireless efforts of our scientist, it is possible that we may never find a successful coronavirus vaccine.

The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.

The launch of phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is a first step in developing a vaccine that could be licensed and used in the field to protect not only the front line health care workers but also those living in areas where Ebola virus exists.

Polio's pretty special because once you get an eradication, you no longer have to spend money on it; it's just there as a gift for the rest of time.

Now a cholera epidemic was sweeping through Southeast Asia and south Asia in the early 1970s, so I started medical school and I joined a laboratory to work on this.

We've actually eliminated Type II polio in the world, at least as far as we can tell.

The difference is that with Ebola, it is such a devastating disease, and there is still no cure. They're still working on vaccines. The fact of the matter with polio, there is a cure; there is a vaccine.

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.

My professional background has prepared me for a moment like this - to confront and defeat a deadly virus that threatens Americans and people around the globe.

A doctor can save maybe a few hundred lives in a lifetime. A researcher can save the whole world.

New vaccines are being developed all the time, which could save many more lives and dramatically improve people's health. And this goes beyond the traditional burden of childhood infectious diseases.

I hope that some day the practice of producing cowpox in human beings will spread over the world - when that day comes, there will be no more smallpox.

Measles is probably the best argument for why there needs to be global health, and why we have to think about it as a global public good. Because in a sense, measles is the canary in the coal mine for immunization. It is, you know, highly transmissible. The vaccine costs 15 cents, so it's not - you know, shouldn't be an issue in terms of cost.

I think if we can prevent a fatal disease, we should.

You don't have to vaccinate every man, woman and child in the country if you have a couple of cases of smallpox cropping up.

As medical research continues and technology enables new breakthroughs, there will be a day when malaria and most all major deadly diseases are eradicated on Earth.

Ninety percent of the cases of polio are in security-vulnerable areas.

It's clear that prevention will never be sufficient. That's why we need a vaccine that will be safe.

A more effective international disease surveillance system is essential for global security both against a bioterrorist attack or a naturally occurring disease.

Medicine has changed greatly in the last decades. Widespread vaccinations have practically eradicated many illnesses, at least in western Europe and the United States. The use of chemotherapy, especially the antibiotics, has contributed to an ever decreasing number of fatalities in infectious diseases.

The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world, there's only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease, I think, is gonna be guinea worm.

Everybody who's a physician, who makes vaccines, who wants to find the cure for cancer. Everybody who wants to do any medical good for humankind got the passion for that before he or she was 10.

Smallpox is the only human infectious disease ever eradicated by science.

By recognizing that infectious disease is not some faraway exotic issue but a global problem, and by sharing the responsibility for its prevention, diagnosis, and control, the whole world will be a lot safer.

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.