WASHINGTON — A different kind of surveillance is going on in the U.S. armed forces.

A monitoring system you may not know about tracks troops and their movements to ensure that potentially pandemic diseases do not spread between countries.

Formed in 1997 by the Department of Defense as a response to President Bill Clinton’s mandate that each agency have protocol in place to deal with pandemic microbial threats, the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (GEIS) Operations Division at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center focuses on service members abroad.

The organization is also responsible for protecting the population of the United States and around the world since, “diseases don’t respect borders,” said Navy Cmdr. David Blazes, chief of the GEIS operations division.

Blazes said that troops on the ground can see the effect of pandemic control through preventative medicine infrastructure designed to protect the troops.

The training of military doctors, as well as those who work on the surveillance side, is crucial to recognizing possible pandemic illness.

“We look at building capacity not only within the military but also with our partner countries overseas,” Blazes said of the training employees receive.

Training breaks down into multiple categories, including epidemiologic training, which enables clinicians and public health officials to recognize an outbreak.  Another important category is laboratory workers, who must be able to recognize the pathogens.  Staff got their first test during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.

“It really became quite evident that our network works,” Blazes said.  “Our network detected the first four cases of swine flu anywhere in the world,” with the first two being discovered at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego.

Though the actions taken if a service member were to become sick with a pandemic-like illness differ depending on where he or she is stationed, there are procedures in place to make sure that news of the illness travels up chains of command for both the military and public health, Blazes said.

In addition to protecting the troops, GEIS also must protect the countries that US troops enter and prevent the reach of pandemic illness across borders.

“We do surveillance to prevent that,” Blazes said.  “Knowing that we send people around the world, it’s our responsibility to make sure we don’t spread disease.”

“An ounce of prevention if worth a pound of cure,” said Dr. Jose Fernandez about pandemic disease protection during a panel discussion of international health on Monday in Washington.

The panel, held at the United States Institute of Peace, looked at countries working together to prevent the spread of disease as a cooperative measure, especially important between adversaries.  Fernandez, who is the acting deputy director in the division of International Health Security with the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke about special groups who travel across borders, including the military.  This was just one of the subjects from the event which promoted the publication of William Long’s book Pandemics and Peace: Public Health Cooperation in Zones of Conflict.

Blazes said that he would not go so far as to say that international cooperation on issues of pandemics is a peacekeeping measure, but that this form of medical diplomacy is crucial to his work at GEIS.

“We value our partnerships with host countries that allow them to work with us,” Blazes said.  “We look to them as partners and recognize that we couldn’t do the work we do without them.”

 

How the program works

 

GEIS looks at pandemic threats through their five pillars, or areas of infection.  Their surveillance projects work to identify any emerging threats in these five areas. (Jacqueline Klimas/MNS)

Area of infection Example
Respiratory Infections Influenza
Gastrointestinal Infections Cholera
Febrile Infections Malaria
Antimicrobial Resistance Many organisms
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Syphilis