| Secretary Marco Rubio U.S. Division of State 2201 C Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20520 |
Pricey Secretary Rubio,
On behalf of the 37,000 members of the American Society for Microbiology, I’m writing to specific our deep considerations relating to the pausing and potential elimination of U.S. funding for international public well being packages. ASM is likely one of the largest skilled life science societies on the earth and a frontrunner in scientific publishing. By our packages and partnerships, we harness the facility of microbiology to serve humanity and remedy probably the most urgent challenges, together with rising infectious ailments and antimicrobial resistance.
As you assessment the standing and funding of worldwide public well being packages at USAID and different federal companies, together with U.S. CDC, we urge you to think about the doubtless dire penalties of eliminating, and even pausing, these packages. World collaboration is paramount to defending public well being. Particularly, we should management and forestall infectious ailments in low-and middle-income nations (LMICs) via laboratory methods strengthening as a way to defend Individuals’ well being at house and overseas.
Pausing or eliminating these important packages impedes U.S.’s capability to collaborate with different nations to actively surveil for rising infectious ailments, and hampers our nation’s readiness to guard U.S. residents, each domestically and globally. For instance, South Africa’s swift genomic sequencing was instrumental in alerting the world in December 2021 to an uncommon coronavirus genomic profile, the Omicron variant. Current outbreaks of Marburg virus and mpox in Africa are regarding, and ceasing public communications and assist not solely threatens the security of U.S. residents, however can be an inefficient strategy to U.S.’s management in combating pandemics. When Ebola re-emerged in 2021 in Guinea, CDC-trained workforce in Guinea enabled the tip of the outbreak in simply 23 days, in comparison with the 11,000 deaths in West Africa, and value U.S. $2 billion and 10,000+ jobs tied to exports from the 2014-2016 outbreak.
Additional, drastically scaling again these packages will enable current and rising microbial threats, together with antimicrobial resistance (AMR), to flourish. AMR is related to over 5 million deaths around the globe yearly and spreads no matter geographic and political boundaries. It’s a basic risk to international safety and economies, with an annual estimated toll of $855 billion. AMR prevention, detection and surveillance are tantamount to stopping additional unfold all through the U.S., which exceeds 3 million infections and 48,000 deaths yearly.
ASM’s public well being packages allow microbiology laboratories to combine medical care and infectious illness surveillance in LMICs. These time-bound packages construct self-sustained capability to detect and monitor microbial threats and notify the U.S. of pending outbreaks, and even pandemics. Moreover, focused U.S. investments in well being methods present a basis for regional stability.
Microbes know no borders. ASM and our members strongly urge you to think about instant reinstatement of funding and communications on international public well being packages, for the safety of all. I might be comfortable to have interaction in additional conversations relating to potential paths ahead. Please attain out to Amalia Corby, Director of Federal Affairs, at acorby@asmusa.org if you want to rearrange a dialogue.
Sincerely,
Stefano Bertuzzi, Ph.D., MPH, CEO
American Society for Microbiology
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