Nathan Wolfe Quotes

With epidemics, people have been standing on the shore, waiting for the gusher to hit the ocean. But to prevent epidemics, you have to look at the various little sources that feed into the river.

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

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.

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.

Doctors and nurses, with their training and their experiences, they would be able to detect unusual patterns of disease. That's why we say it is important for every country to have a proper surveillance system. The function of the surveillance system is to detect unusual patterns of diseases.

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

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

We have seen SARS stopped dead in its tracks.

When there is an influenza threat, drop everything and focus on risks from influenza pandemics. When SARS spreads, focus on unknown respiratory diseases. This approach helps to quell public concern, but it's a hugely inefficient way to deal with future risks.

The reality is: By the time swine flu got on the radar screen of global public health, it had already spread. It was already in the States, it was in Mexico, it was in New Zealand. By the time it reaches that point, you've lost the ability to contain it.

As a species, I think we have no choice but to try and forecast pandemics.

Contagious and infectious diseases have been largely overcome.

The campaign of sanitation in our colonies has wiped out many epidemic diseases and reduced to a minimum the hotbeds of infection. Our colonies can boast of sanitary and hygienic measures similar to those existing in the most progressive countries.

Congress did the right thing with Ebola. They funded us to protect Americans and keep us safer.

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.

I'm for increased funding for the Centers for Disease Control.

Over and over, nature shows that it's a really tough adversary. That's why it's important that we invest in laboratories, disease detectives, research, mosquito control, the public health system around the world to find, stop, track, prevent health threats.

Accurate diagnostics are key to enabling successful public health measures.

I've had to confront a lot of pandemics and infectious diseases around the globe.

I think the world should unite and focus on strong health systems to prepare the whole world to prevent epidemics - or if there is an outbreak, to manage it quickly - because viruses don't respect borders, and they don't need visas.

During my tenure as Minister of Health of Ethiopia from 2005 to 2012, we achieved tremendous progress in tackling the many infectious diseases prevalent in resource-poor countries such as my own.

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.

Infectious diseases have become less prominent as causes of death and disability in regions of improved sanitation and adequate supplies of antibiotics.

There's no one place a virus goes to die - but that doesn't make its demise any less a public health victory. Throughout human history, viral diseases have had their way with us, and for just as long, we have hunted them down and done our best to wipe them out.

Heart disease continues to be the number one killer; cancer, the number 2 killer, not far behind. The tragic aspect of these deadly diseases is that they could all be cured, I do believe, if we had sufficient funding.