DHHS
The Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases (DBMD) is dedicated to preventing and controlling the many emerging, re-emerging, drug-resistant, and other important bacterial and mycotic diseases in the United States and around the world. Changes in society, technology, our environment, and microorganisms themselves are affecting the occurrence of bacterial and mycotic diseases. For example, increased use of out-of-home child care is contributing to the problem of otitis media, which is reaching epidemic proportions among U.S. children. The widespread use of antibiotics has coincided with increased antimicrobial resistance, which is of special concern in pneumonia, now among the top 10 causes of death in the United States. Recent changes in food processing and transport methods provide opportunities for the development and spread of foodborne bacterial agents. Microbial adaptation is leading to new or previously unrecognized pathogens. The division's branches are responsible for investigation, surveillance, and control of specific groups of diseases. In four of the branches, epidemiology and laboratory sections collaborate to provide clinical and epidemiologic information on disease outbreaks and identification, diagnostic-test development, virulence determination, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the pathogens involved; the fifth branch provides statistical and information systems support to the division. Website: "http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/" [Summary provided by the DBMD]
DHHS/CDC/NCID/DBMD