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"The events of September 11 have changed many things, including our perspective on public health," said David L. Heymann, M.D. '70, executive director of programs on infectious diseases at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. "The impact of new antibiotics and vaccines in the 1950s and '60s fueled great optimism that infectious diseases were no longer a problem, and one disease, smallpox, was actually eradicated. But the rapid development of antimicrobial resistance and slowdown in new vaccine development after the 1960s led to concerns that the 14 million deaths each year from infectious diseases would continue to be a major public health problem. Now, the threat of deliberate use of infectious agents adds further concern that infectious diseases will continue to harm human populations."
Heymann was in Washington, DC, accompanying WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, on the day of the attacks. Since returning to Geneva, he has been interviewed by the BBC, CNN and the Discovery Channel on the threat posed to world health by bioterrorism.
Heymann has worked on almost all continents, including Antarctica, during his career. In 1976, he was in both Zaire (Ebola virus) and Philadelphia (Legionnaire's Disease) to help combat the first frightening and mysterious outbreaks of these two diseases. Two years ago he speculated that globalization posed a new challenge to experts in international public health. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington have put his comments in a totally new perspective.
"Man, like the mosquito, is a vector for the dissemination of infectious diseases," he said in the Summer '99 issue of the Medical Center's magazine, Visions. "Today I am in Geneva, tomorrow I could be in Winston-Salem or the middle of Africa. And I could be carrying an infection, or return with an infection incurred during travel. And that infection might turn out to be resistant to treatment with antibiotics." |