Ali S. Khan, M.D., M.P.H., dean of the College of Public Health, will be a featured expert in the July 6 documentary “Mosquito” on the Discovery Channel.
The documentary, to air at 8 p.m. CST on Cox channel 37, focuses the world’s attention on the single greatest agent of death in modern human history: the mosquito. As a former director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Khan speaks candidly about what needs to be done on a global scale to combat the issue of mosquito-borne disease.
Recent news coverage around the globe has highlighted individual outbreaks of diseases such as Zika, malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever, chikungunya and dengue. But there is a bigger story to be told, one that connects the dots between these diseases and reveals how a single force is driving them all: the unceasing, accelerating expansion of the mosquito around the globe, driven by factors such as increasing global travel and trade and a warmer world that is more hospitable to mosquitos.
Dr. Khan addresses the harm mosquitos cause in his book, “The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers,” that was released last year. It provides an inside account of the fight to contain the world’s deadliest diseases — and the panic and corruption that make them worse.
“Mosquito-borne diseases were defining components for developing public health in the United States,” Dr. Khan said. “Understanding the role of mosquitoes in yellow fever and malaria transmission permitted the U.S. to build the Panama Canal at the turn of the 20th century, and the genesis of the CDC was to develop a malaria control program in the South during World War II.
“As we await the renewal of the Zika season in Florida and the Gulf Coast with the travel warnings to pregnant women, we are reminded that the battle is yet to be won,” he said.
Yes! Congratulations Dr. Khan.
It's pity I miss the chance watching it