- [Narrator] If a disease breaks out
anywhere in the world,
the Epidemic Intelligence Service
or EIS is called in to investigate the outbreak.
- A lot of people refer to EIS
as the disease detectives
because we are the ones sent out
during outbreak or emergency response situations.
- [Narrator] The elite team works quickly
to figure out who is sick,
the origin of the infection
and how to stop it from spreading.
(slow bright music)
- I'm Caitlin Cossaboom.
I'm a second year Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer
at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
My first outbreak was an anthrax outbreak
in wildlife in Namibia.
Over 200 hippos and Cape buffalo died.
Over a thousand people were exposed to the carcasses.
We assisted Namibia with control efforts
in order to prevent future infections.
(slow bright music)
- [Narrator] Today, Caitlin has been deployed here
on Saint Croix,
in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In September of 2017,
the islands were hit by two major hurricanes.
In the aftermath several people fell sick
to a bacterial disease called Leptospirosis.
The first time it was seen on the islands.
The local health department needed backup,
so they called in the disease detectives.
- Leptospirosis or Lepto is a bacterial disease spread
through the urine of infected animals.
If there's flooding or rain,
humans could have contact with water
that has been contaminated.
The symptoms of Lepto are flu-like illness.
But people that get a very serious infection,
it can be fatal.
We have 14 people from CDC
that are down here
for this as well as at least 25 local volunteers.
We're gonna go back
to the block that we were in yesterday,
um, yeah, so, it'll be pretty quick.
- [Narrator] Once the team has their map assignments
the detective work begins.
We start going door to door
with the primary goal of educating people
on the disease.
Hi, good afternoon.
- Hi.
- Hi, nice to meet you. - I'm Mike.
- We asked them if they'd be willing to take
a survey.
We take a small amount of blood, so that we can test
and see if they've been exposed to Lepto.
The lab takes a specimen.
The centrifuge will spin down the specimens,
and then they'll store those for freezing
to be eventually mailed
back to CDC in Atlanta for the testing.
What we're really hoping is
that the Department
of Health can use that information
when paired with the survey data
to identify risk factors for exposures.
(slow bright music)
I have a training in animal diseases
and being able to apply that
to help humans is kind of the best of both worlds.
You're doing something
that is actively preventing people
from getting sick with really serious diseases.
Being out there
and doing that and interacting with people
and making that difference,
it's been a great experience.
(slow bright music)