The International Center for Public Health will marshal an extraordinary array of individuals and institutions to address the global public health aspects of infectious disease through the implementation of multi-disciplinary research, clinical and educational programs. By the mid-1960 s, it appeared that infectious diseases had been conquered. So we diverted funding and attention away from our public health surveillance systems and made infectious disease research a low priority.
Antibiotic resistance provides a prominent case study.
The antibiotic miracle that began during World War II became the basis for overconfidence and complacency and for five decades, we misused and overused antibiotics. Now people are dying from diseases once thought to be totally under control. Some serious hospital infections are now resistant to all but one drug. Drug resistant tuberculosis became epidemic in New York City in the early 1990 s, and now a rampant outbreak of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Russian prisons threatens the entire world. Our public health systems are struggling to deal with chronic underfunding and lack of attention.