World Must Keep Disease Outbreak Vigilance Despite Vaccine Successes

The Atlantic: Infectious Psychology
James Hamblin, a senior editor and health columnist at The Atlantic

“…[Wednesday] morning, at an Atlantic Live event…, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, and I sat and talked — about how [the Ebola epidemic] happened, and about the complex psychology inherent to preventing the spread of infectious diseases. … That’s where talking comes in, I suppose. Without being terrifying, keeping people apprised of the risks of complacency. It’s a balance that Fauci, after 31 years in his role, strikes well. ‘A lot of children used to die from measles and polio, things like that, which we don’t have right now. So we’re, in some respects, the victims of our own success,’ he said. ‘We have to continue to realize that the risk of a vaccine is infinitely lower than the risk of the disease itself.’ By all accounts, new outbreaks will come. They will come at costs that will be great, but less if the world is adequately prepared” (3/18).

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