Extract below. Full text: https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/03/19/g-s1-54683/measle...
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Measles is like a fire that spreads incredibly fast. It's one of the most contagious diseases.
And the last thing you'd want to do in a fire scenario is get rid of smoke detectors, says Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University's Pandemic Center. But, she says, that's exactly what's happening now, just as measles cases rise in the U.S. and other countries.
She's talking about the U.S. decision to stop funding the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network.
"It's our surveillance infrastructure. You can think of it like the smoke detectors that tell us where the fires are, so that we know how to respond to it," says Nuzzo. "So this is obviously devastating and it's particularly devastating given how many countries are struggling with measles [outbreaks]."
The laboratory network is made up of over 700 laboratories in over 150 countries. The network is run by the World Health Organization but was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since its conception 25 years ago. As part of President Trump's decision to withdraw from the WHO, his administration also cut funding for this lab network, which now "faces imminent shutdown," says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO.
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org