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Opinion: Securing the U.S. from its most dangerous invader: infectious disease

Instead of taking the lead in global health security, the U.S.is retreating from its responsibility to help make its citizens, and the world, safer from infectious disease.
During an in-flight simulation of a response to an influenza pandemic, a health services worker helps a "flu-stricken" passenger.

As the Democratic Republic of Congo works to contain the latest outbreak of Ebola, in what could be a test of the world’s ability to contain the disease since the calamitous outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and 2015, it’s a good time to think about the global infectious disease pandemic that happened in May.

In case you didn’t hear about it, that pandemic killed 150 million people around the world, including 15 million Americans, within a year and caused the U.S. stock market to crash. Fortunately, the deaths and economic cataclysm were just on paper — or in with a group of high-ranking U.S. government officials that was organized by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

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