The Outbreak Era: Why Infectious Diseases Keep Making Headlines

Measles, an explosive cyclospora outbreak, a hantavirus scare aboard a cruise ship, an ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rising sexually transmitted infections, and an HIV pandemic playing out amid U.S. funding cuts to global health. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is never fully out of the picture.

In this talk, Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine and Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research, makes sense of this crowded and often alarming landscape, with a particular focus on HIV. She discusses the state of public health, the erosion of trust in government and scientific institutions, and the consequences of a fractured healthcare system, especially at a moment when the agency overseeing it is led by someone without formal medical or scientific training.

Gandhi closes by turning the conversation toward solutions, inviting the audience to think together about how collective action can help repair the state of infectious disease response in this country.