Dartmouth Expert Available to Discuss Zika Epidemic

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Feb. 5, 2016 

Dartmouth College’s Elizabeth Talbot, MD, a global expert in infectious diseases and public health, is available to provide insight and analysis of the Zika epidemic.

“This virus is teaching us yet again how much we have to learn about pathogens -- the creative ways they can be transmitted, the power we have to prevent transmission and the terrible things they can do if we don’t,” Dr. Talbot says. “This Zika epidemic is also another example of how easily mosquitoes move disease from person to person, then region to hemisphere to globe.”

The World Health Organization has declared the Zika virus an international public health emergency, prompted by growing concern that it could cause birth defects. As many as four million people could be infected by the end of the year.

Dr. Talbot, who previously worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, is an associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the New Hampshire deputy state epidemiologist. Her work at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center includes consultation on general infectious diseases with a focus on mycobacterial infections. Her research activities are primarily in global tuberculosis control, but she is involved in outbreak investigations in New Hampshire and around the world, most recently in the West African Ebola epidemic.

To reach Dr. Talbot, contact John Cramer, associate director of media relations, at john.cramer@dartmouth.edu or 603-646-9130.

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