Stories From the Field
These stories illustrate the work CDC and its partners do to advance public health across the United States and around the globe.
CDC experts work with states, countries, and other partners to detect and respond to outbreaks, train professionals and strengthen health systems, and create programs that increase the safety of people's food, water, and environment.
Read about some of the specific ways we do this below, and explore our general work with food, water, and fungus.
In the United States
Food
Helping Solve Salmonella Outbreak Mysteries
Foodborne Diseases Centers for Outbreak Response Enhancement (FoodCORE) played a key role in solving a 2012 multistate outbreak of Salmonella Bareilly and Nchanga infections.
New York City's "Team Salmonella" Successful in Solving an Outbreak
In August 2011, public health officials began an investigation into a Salmonella outbreak in which many cases resided in New York. An in-depth investigation was conducted by the New York City Department of Mental Health and Hygiene (NYCDOHMH), who is a partner in the FoodCORE project.
Utah Solves a Two-year Outbreak Mystery
For over 2 years, public health officials in Utah struggled with a Salmonella outbreak linked to queso fresco.
Investment in public health saves lives
The September 2011 Listeria outbreak, which was linked to a single cantaloupe farm in Colorado, is a textbook example of how investments in coordinated public health response can save lives.
PulseNet at Work: Detecting Hazardous Hazelnuts
They're usually in bowls of mixed nuts that are a holiday staple. But for 8 people who lived in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the 2010 holidays weren't so merry. Beginning in late December, they all came down with a rare and serious illness caused by Escherichia coli O157:H7 that was lurking in, of all places, hazelnuts.
PulseNet & Foodborne Disease Outbreak Detection
Pulse Net was developed after the 1993 E. coli O157 outbreak from hamburgers made 726 people sick and killed 4 children. After the outbreak, more clinical labs began testing ill people for E. coli and found many more infections—revealing the problem was more serious than originally thought.
Wisconsin's Salmonella mystery and the surprising culprit
Salmonella – we've all heard the news and have avoided the recalled foods. Did you ever think you could get Salmonella without eating these tainted foods? The Association of Public Health Laboratories reports how one Wisconsin infant's illness sparked an international investigation that led to a surprising source and the role that CDC’s PulseNet played in the investigation.
Surveillance finds the culprit
What do ground beef, leafy greens, unpasteurized apple juice, and raw cookie dough have in common? They all have been associated with one of the most lethal, and now one of the best known, foodborne pathogens—E. coli, which captured media attention in the U.S. after outbreaks caused widespread sickness and even death.
A food sleuth + a shopper card + a salami = Successful investigation
"A disease detective" is how CDC 's Casey Barton Behravesh described her role in tracking down the source of a Salmonella outbreak in 2010 that sickened more than 270 persons in more than 40 states. And what unlocked the mystery? Something most of us have in our wallets or on our key rings.
Real Stories of the Dangers of Raw Milk
Mary McGonigle-Martin, from California, is the kind of mom who does her homework. Searching for a healthier way to provide dairy for her 7-year-old son, she considered raw milk.
Water
Frozen pipes could be hazardous to your health
We've all probably experienced water pressure drops, or even interruptions in water service. It's usually no more than mildly inconvenient. But when you're without water for 12 days, like people in two rural counties in Alabama were in January 2010, it could be dangerous to your health.
A camp(y) fire tale
Around the 4th of July 2010, near West Yellowstone, Montana, people were reporting to clinics and emergency departments with symptoms of acute gastroenteritis. Almost 100 people had come down with illness caused by a very common gastrointestinal germ, Campylobacter jejuni.
Fungus
Illness tracked at the Iowa governor's mansion
In January 2008, 9 cases of lung disease were identified in office workers in Des Moines. They had symptoms similar to those of influenza: fever, chills, muscle aches, and cough. CDC assisted the county and state health departments in conducting environmental sampling to find the source.
Alert Montana disease detective identifies the suspect: Cryptococcus gattii
In response to increasing numbers of cases of Cryptococcus gattii in the US Pacific Northwest, the northwest states (OR, WA, MT, ID, and AK) formed a Working Group in 2008 to address this public health nemesis that causes a variety of serious infections.
Around the Globe
Food
Global Foodborne Infections Network strengthens foodborne disease outbreak detection and response
Frustrated by a lack of adequate laboratory supplies and dated laboratory facilities, Dr. Raufu Ibrahim, a highly trained Salmonella researcher in Nigeria, was unable to confirm his suspicion about a new strain of Salmonella. Undeterred, Dr. Ibrahim contacted international reference laboratories for assistance and received a response from the Global Foodborne Infections Network.
PulseNet International: Tracking foodborne disease outbreaks throughout the world
In February 2007, millions of Americans heard news reports about a large multistate outbreak of Salmonella traced to peanut butter produced in Atlanta, Georgia. But foodborne disease outbreaks do not respect borders—so CDC's PulseNet program was working to ensure global detection of the outbreak.
Water
Christian Health Association of Kenya Collaborates with CDC in Safe Water
Limited access to safe water in Nyanza and Western Provinces, Kenya is a major problem. Diarrhea rates in these regions are among the highest in Kenya. An inexpensive safe water system can reduce the risk of diarrhea from 25–85%.
International Outbreak Investigations
International outbreak investigations involve providing assistance to foreign Ministries of Health to identify the causes, understand the associated risk factors, control transmission, and prevent further spread of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)-related disease—like a typhoid fever outbreak in Zimbabwe or Cholera outbreak in Haiti.
Delivering Health by the Drop
In the world today, close to 1 billion people still drink water collected directly from streams, lakes and shallow hand-dug wells, while hundreds of millions more drink contaminated water from unsafe municipal systems or borehole wells.
Life–saving collaborations: USAID and CDC
In global health work, it is important to find legacies that stand the test of timeand scrutiny. CDC and USAID's collaboration to address critical global health issues is one that provides both agencies the opportunity to build such a legacy.
Lack of soap means illness, death for millions of children
It still makes Fatoma Dia's eyes widen whenever the Hilton hotel cleaning worker sees a bar of barely used soap on a bathroom counter. "This," she says, picking it up with a gloved hand and dropping it in a brown bucket, "is valuable where I come from." The 35-year-old grew up in a mountainous region of southern Sudan where soap can cost more than a day's wages. CNN Heroes reports on the CDC-WHO collaboration that has led to facilitating better sanitation in needy regions and teaching people the importance of basic hand washing.
Safe water school interventions in Kenya save lives
Over 1.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water. Nearly two million children die each year due to diarrhea and other infectious diseases resulting from unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene. To prevent these deaths, CDC and its partners developed the Safe Water System.
Safe water and HIV: Evidence-based integration
Jemima is a woman living with HIV in rural western Kenya, where rates of HIV are among the highest in the world. She founded a group that provides emotional support and small loans to HIV-affected families in her home area. However, Jemima's own HIV disease continued to progress.
Basic public health actions rapidly mobilized to lessen impact of cholera in earthquake-devastated Haiti
When the January 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, the first priorities of Haitian public health officials and their partners, including CDC and USAID, were improving access to clean water and sanitation and promoting basic hygiene to protect Haitians from threats they faced living in crowded, temporary camps.
Training teaches Haitian health care workers: "No one need die from diarrheal disease"
When a cholera outbreak occurs in resource-limited countries like Haiti, where sanitary conditions are poor and safe water systems do not exist, public health officials must act quickly. A first request of CDC and partners was to help educate health care workers to manage cholera and teach Haitians how to prevent it.
Fungus
Fighting a deadly fungus: A new strategy to prevent deaths due to Cryptococcus
In people with weakened immune systems, the fungus Cryptococcus causes life-threatening meningeal infections in nearly a million people every year. Cryptococcus is the most common cause of meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa, and is a leading cause of death among people with HIV.
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