Thomas R. Frieden Quotes

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.

The Ebola epidemic was the most frightening outbreak I have witnessed in my lifetime, and I believe it was necessary to react globally as strongly as we did.

While Ebola's deadly reach has proven to be a complex and unique international challenge, the many uncertainties surrounding this virus continue to threaten U.S. national security.

If you find diseases before they've really emerged, you can control them early on, before you get a major epidemic.

We’re in a globalized world and the risk [of epidemics] is shared..

SARS was a very important event... And many countries have learned from SARS... The SARS event sort of gave them additional impetus and the sense of urgency for them to really revise the International Health Regulations.

Pandemic influenza is by nature an international issue; it requires an international solution.

This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions now should be undertaken with increased urgency and at an accelerated pace.

To be able to detect the outbreak of avian flu anywhere in the world is going to require a partnership of several countries that will share information and samples, but it is important to remember a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere.

New and emerging infections keep coming back and the world needs a collective defense system, and that requires international cooperation and collaboration, in the name of global solidarity.

We have seen SARS stopped dead in its tracks.

We live in a world fraught with risk from new pandemics. Fortunately, we also now live in an era with the tools to build a global immune system.

As demonstrated by the emergence of the Mexican swine flu in the U.S., infectious diseases have little respect for borders; helping developing countries detect and deal with their diseases is the surest way for us to protect ourselves from new and potentially devastating epidemics.

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.

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.

From West Nile to swine flu to Ebola to the global outbreak of dengue fever, the capacity to deal with threats like Zika must be designed into our preparedness posture.

I don't think you just can put people on the starting block and then wait... for the next Ebola-like epidemic. I think that you need somehow a small-capacity response who's going to run the first few kilometers of the marathon.

What hard evidence is there that Obama doesn't want ebola in America?

The peace loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality.... When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.

Avian flu, which has already killed 50 people, is only a mutation away from being transmissible from person to person. We have no immunity, no vaccines, and no cure. It is imperative that we strengthen our domestic vaccine supply, expand legal protections, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors, and advance research and development. These initiatives will help protect us from a deadly viral outbreak that experts warn could come to our shores any day.

There is a cost for investing in pandemic preparedness, but a much bigger cost for not investing in it.

As cities get bigger, our best defence will be to prevent outbreaks in the first place by building better public health systems, improving childhood immunisation through better routine immunisation and pre-emptive vaccination campaigns.

The Ebola virus is unlike any health crisis we have ever experienced and needs a response unlike anything we have ever seen.

Yellow fever outbreaks are not uncommon. But, as with other infectious diseases, when they occur in urban areas, they can play out very differently - not least in terms of the speed and scale at which they can spread.

We know how to stop Ebola: by isolating and treating patients, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and breaking the chains of transmission.