The Trump administration’s just released Global Health Security Strategy aims to prevent, detect, and respond to “infectious disease threats at home and abroad, whether naturally occurring, unintentional, or deliberate.” One of the three overarching goals identified in the Strategy is to make the homeland prepared for and more resilient to biothreats, which the administration seeks to accomplish through “accelerated research on medical countermeasures, increased opportunities as appropriate and planning for clinical trials during emergency response, and better communications with affected populations on public health measures, including vector control and research goals.”

The Strategy specifies the roles and responsibilities of the federal government departments and agencies for supporting this and the other goals, with functions that are to be performed domestically as well as in support of foreign partner. One of the agencies included in this discussion is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among other roles and responsibilities, the CDC is to “Lead, in conjunction with relevant departments and agencies, public health surveillance, laboratory, workforce, antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention and control, and emergency-management capacity development, including technical expertise, training, and capacity building.” During the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa in 2014-2015, the CDC published the Interim Guidance for Managers and Workers Handling Untreated Sewage from Individuals with Ebola in the United States, among other guidance documents intended to prevent transmission of the virus.