Nathan Wolfe Quotes

The long, cold Minnesota winters instilled in me a fascination for exotic far off places; I aspired toward a career in tropical diseases and world health problems.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

History has told us that no one can stop a pandemic. The question is: when is it going to happen? I don't think anybody has the answer to it. We have to be on the lookout for any time, any day.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Disease is largely a removable evil. It continues to afflict humanity, not only because of incomplete knowledge of its causes and lack of individual and public hygiene, but also because it is extensively fostered by harsh economic and industrial conditions and by wretched housing in congested communities.

… it seems to me that there is little knowledge of the ordinary rules of sanitation in many of the rural districts of the South in which we have been. The same holds true of some of the poorer districts in the cities. We all know that you can become immune to almost any type of infection, but some people die in the process unnecessarily.

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

The United States and WHO [World Health Organization] have no clear protocols for DURC, no standards for determining safety, and no plans for a coordinated global response.

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

If you want to know the value of vaccines, just spend some time in a clinic in Africa. The faces of the mothers and fathers say it all: vaccines prevent illness and save lives.

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.

The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is the perfect place for a dialogue that brings together industry, civil society, U.N. agencies, and countries around a shared response to the challenge of protecting children against vaccine-preventable illness.

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.

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.

At CDC, we work 24/7 to save lives and protect people.

Over the years, I have worked on programs in Africa and around the globe to combat malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV. I have been witness to incredible progress in these fights.