The Task Force for Global Health

On a cool October day in a village high up in the mountainous reaches of northern Pakistan, men, women, and children gathered to take a drug that can save their sight. It’s the first mass drug administration (MDA) for trachoma in a country where the bacterial eye disease is the leading infectious cause of blindness…. Read More

The Public Health Informatics Institute helps broker unprecedented agreement on a standard for exchanging critical health information in the United States. It’s a cold January morning, but the conversation is heating up in a conference room at The Task Force for Global Health where the Digital Bridge governance body has gathered. To reaffirm their commitment… Read More

Our co-founder, Dr. Bill Foege, spoke and signed his two newest books on Saturday, September 1, 2018 at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA. The Fears of the Rich, the Needs of the Poor: My Years at the CDC illustrates the select stories from Dr. Foege’s years at the CDC, including his time as Director. The… Read More

If the world is to achieve the United Nation’s ambitious goal of stopping HIV transmission completely by 2030, more countries need to have robust laboratory capacity with well-trained workers. In support of this goal, The Task Force for Global Health is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on an array of… Read More

By Caroline Kusi Dr. Bill Foege – who co-founded The Task Force for Global Health, among his many other contributions to public health – once said, “if we are to maintain the reputation this institution now enjoys, it will be because in everything we do, behind everything we say, as the basis for every program… Read More

When ethical issues arise in global health, how can practitioners and communities weigh the risks and benefits to agree on a path forward? The Task Force’s new program on ethics and compassion explores such questions and how to address them. In this video, program director, Dr. David Addiss, MD, talks about what makes the Focus Area… Read More

Greater collaboration is needed among stakeholders to ensure all countries have the capacity to respond effectively to disease outbreaks. That was the consensus of a June meeting of global health leaders who met at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy to develop a roadmap for building global field epidemiology capacity. The Task Force for… Read More

​ In Kenya, the African Health Workforce Project (AHWP) has assisted the ministry of health in the development and implementation of human resource information systems (rHRIS) to strengthen management of the country’s 80,000 healthcare workers. In this video, AHWP Director Martha Rogers, MD, discusses how these systems could potentially transform health systems in countries throughout… Read More

By Joseph J. Amon and David G. Addiss On a hot, humid summer evening in Haiti many years ago, a young woman sought care for her swollen leg. Scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tested her blood for the presumed cause of the swelling – a parasitic disease known as… Read More

Task Force Trachoma Program Celebrates 20 years of Progress When The Task Force’s International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) began in 1998, there were large knowledge gaps in the transmission and control of the disease. ITI knew that people were going blind from an ancient scourge; that simple public health interventions could prevent blindness from trachoma; and that it… Read More