Wil S. Hylton Quotes

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.

I think when smallpox was eliminated, the whole world got pretty excited about that because it's just such a dramatic success.

Infectious diseases ... have probably been the most dangerous of enemies of mankind, much more so than war and mass murder. When one studies the constant epidemics of the past and the deficiency diseases on land and at sea, one realizes that the whole of civilization could have succumbed, and one is constantly surprised that mankind has survived.

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.

Smallpox, which spreads by respiration and kills roughly one in three of those infected, took hundreds of millions of lives during a recorded history dating to Pharaonic Egypt. The last case was in 1978, and the disease was declared eradicated on May 8, 1980.

It is a remarkable fact that smallpox, a scourge for thousands of years, has now vanished from the earth, except for two tiny vials, one locked in a highly secure facility at the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, and another stored in a similarly secure vault in Siberia.

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.

Pandemics happen. They have happened three times in the last 100 years…. They change the politics, the culture, the society. Pandemics do that …. Pandemics reshape history …. The likelihood of a pandemic is almost certain…. The consequences are worldwide.

The Ebola epidemic is the worst health emergency there has been in modern times.

In 'Pox: An American History,' Michael Willrich meticulously traces the story of how the smallpox vaccine was pressed into service during a major outbreak.

I'll get to see many disease eradications. and we're seeing a lot of progress.

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.

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.

Universal vaccination may well be the greatest success story in medical history.

Smallpox was the worst disease in history. It killed more people than all the wars in history.

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

The world can now maintain an acute infection in a way that is unprecedented in the history of life on our planet.

Pandemics happen. When they do, they change the world.

Global pandemics---whether naturally occurring or intentionally spread---pose a greater threat than most man-made weapons of mass destruction.

Microbial foes have the advantage of an extraordinary capacity to rapidly reproduce and adapt, thereby propagating themselves even in the face of impressive advances in public health and the availability of countermeasures such as diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. This inherent adaptability of microbes can only be matched with the continual application of wit and technological capability. The best defense for the human species against elimination by the ever-evolving waves of microbial pathogens are public health measures coordinated with biomedical research that will continue to provide innovative tools to counterbalance these endless microbial challenges. Ultimately, if medical science continues to fight the microbial foes to a draw, as has occurred for much of the past century, humanity will have won.

It entered Egypt at the end of the season when the grasslands turn green, hence in the autumn of the year 748…This epidemic was distinctive in that it did not particularly affect one region and leave another untouched but spread to all parts of the Earth, in the East as in the West…Furthermore, it encompassed not just the human species but also the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and the animals in the field…

Contagious and infectious diseases have been largely overcome.

If smallpox were a threat just to individuals, then it could be left up to individuals to decide whether or not they want to protect themselves.

Unequal development in different countries in the promotion of health and control of disease, especially communicable disease, is a common danger.

Unfortunately, infectious diseases don’t pay much attention to budget cycles.