We welcome guest blogger Dr. Douglas H. Hamilton, director of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) – AKA the Disease Detectives – at CDC. Photo courtesy of the CDC Public Health Image Library.

There are times when many outbreaks hit all at once. CDC disease detectives are working in communities and responding to outbreaks of hantavirus in California; a bad West Nile Virus season; Salmonella food contamination in cantaloupes and now mangoes; Legionnaires’ disease in Chicago; H3N2 virus in pigs; and plague in Colorado.  This is a summer blockbuster of outbreaks – from some diseases that are seasonal and some that are pretty rare.