Despite being a major concern, the Ebola epidemic is hardly the only public health issue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation and the world have faced in 2014.
The CDC has reviewed its responses to 10 of the most important public health challenges over the last year, listed below:
1. In response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa — the largest response in the agency's history — the CDC has roughly 170 staff in the field and more than 700 people working on the virus at any one time.
2. CDC made progress in its battle against antibiotic resistance and preventing healthcare-associated infections but it remains a critical initiative for 2015.
3. Until recently, enterovirus D-68 was a rare virus that affected mostly children and particularly children with asthma. The CDC was dedicated to investigating EV-D68 and developed a rapid lab test in 2014 that can detect the virus.
4. Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome is a relatively new viral respiratory illness that was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The prevalence of cases of this illness showed a dramatic increase during 2014 so the CDC has been preparing for when or if it spreads to the U.S.
5. The HIV/AIDS pandemic remains one of the world's most critical public health challenges. As a partner in President Barack Obama's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the CDC has provided support to more than 60 countries, built capacity for their national HIV/AIDS programs, helped support life-saving antiretroviral treatment for 7.7 million people and supported HIV testing and counseling for more than 56.7 million people in 2014.
6. The CDC continues to work toward eliminating polio. Doing so would not only eliminate a crippling disease for generations to come, but it could save between $40 billion and $50 billion worldwide over the next 20 years.
7. Laboratory incidents raised national awareness of the importance of laboratory safety, a goal the CDC continued to work toward in 2014 by striving for the highest standards of safety.
8. With support of key partners, the Million Hearts campaign prompted widespread adoption and use of standardized treatment protocols for improving blood pressure control which can reduce deaths from heart attack and stroke. Nearly 800,000 Americans die each year from cardiovascular diseases.
9. Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S., killing more than 480,000 each year. The CDC continued its national tobacco education campaign, Tips from Former Smokers, by featuring ads that explain the secondary health conditions people may not realize are related to smoking that, nevertheless, may cause disability and disfigurement.
20. Every day in the U.S., 44 people die of drug overdoses. The CDC joined with partners to improve prescription monitoring and reduce unnecessary prescriptions in 2014. The agency encouraged states with particularly high prescribing rates to reduce the inappropriate prescription of drugs that are dangerous when misused or abused.
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