Khan said the CDC's first line of attack is to know its enemy: the genetics of a virus, how it attacks and who it kills.
"If you don't know what it is, you can't make a lab test for it, you can't make a treatment for it," Khan said. "Everything hinges on knowing what it is."
Disease Surveillance
CDC labs were on the front lines researching SARS, the coronavirus, some strains of the Ebola virus and others before they were under control. Khan said if a virus isn't understood internationally, the World Health Organization and others may send it to CDC laboratories.
"We don't outsource. The buck ends here," Khan said.
The CDC also has more than 500 people placed at county and state health departments "working shoulder to shoulder" with public health officials to track disease, Khan said. Local health departments manage most small outbreaks alone, but if something more widespread strikes, such as the H1N1 outbreak of 2009, the CDC will hear about it quickly.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/09/09/how-cdc-would-deal-with-real-life-contagion/#ixzz1XUhatALc
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