I Am CDC - Ryan Wallace

About

I’ve been with CDC for eight years. I work for the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. You often see us in the moon suits on the news fighting things like Ebola and other very dangerous diseases. I am a veterinarian epidemiologist, which means I work on diseases that impact both animals and people. I’m the head of the Rabies Epidemiology Unit. Here in the United States, we actually have a lot of rabies in our wild animals, but because we get our dogs and cats vaccinated, we see very few human deaths. That’s not the same story internationally where over 59 thousand people die every year, mostly children. Rabies is the deadliest disease in the world. Once symptoms start, there is no cure, you will die. One of my most memorable experiences has been helping the country of Haiti develop their rabies elimination program. Haiti has one of the highest rates of human rabies deaths in the world. We started with one veterinarian who was helping prevent cases in a community. Within three months, we had five. Within six months, we had 10, and now we have more than 50 people helping to control this disease across the entire country. This program has been a shining example of how to control a deadly disease in a country with limited resources. Every day I come to work, I feel like I’m having a direct impact on preventing human rabies deaths, and furthering CDC’s goal of global rabies elimination. I'm Ryan Wallace and I am CDC!

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Wikimedia Commons, in Wikimedia Commons

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Public domain, as the Wikimedia Commons states it.

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Public domain

Credit

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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