Conquering Epidemics

We can never stop fighting

Humans and pathogens are locked in a bitter arms race—and the pathogens are winning. They are evolving to resist our best medicines, and humanity’s pipeline of effective antibiotic weapons is empty. Meanwhile, in a world of packed cities, constant travel, and a warming planet, the danger of a massive outbreak is more acute than ever.

We’re fighting on many fronts to make sure humanity is ready when the next big outbreak happens. Whether it’s a virulent new virus or a persistent killer like AIDS, TB, or Malaria, we’re determined to outsmart our infectious disease foes. We’re mining mountains of data to reveal clues about how these diseases spread. We’re cracking the pathogens’ biological codes. And we’re helping teams around the world build better systems for surveillance and response.

We’re stopping patient 0 from leading to patient 6.7 billion.

Recent Stories

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Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is proving as effective in real-world settings as it did in clinical testing, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) co-authored by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public…

Ad campaign aims to convince Americans to get COVID-19 vaccines

The Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative have unveiled a new public service ad campaign aimed at building trust among Americans who may be hesitant about getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

The latest on the coronavirus

Harvard Chan School experts offer comments and context about the coronavirus in a variety of media outlets.

We're better off with mRNA vaccines

The technology that is helping us combat COVID-19 is also poised to help us tackle tough infectious and non-infectious diseases. Immunologist Sarah Fortune explains how these vaccines work, and how the mRNA platform could transform the prevention and…

Texas storm offers glimpse of how climate change threatens public health

February 23, 2021 – An extreme winter storm followed by freezing temperatures, prolonged power outages, and water shortages has threatened the health of millions of Texans. Renee Salas, a Yerby Fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and…