Following a June 15, 2011 Future Strategies for Bioinformatics in CDC’s Infectious Diseases Laboratories intenal report which identified a “critical need” for increased Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) capacity at the CDC. Concluding “[t]he authoritative analysis and interpretation of scientific data is a critical area where CDC must excel for the Agency to continue to provide international leadership in public health and policy. The mission of CDC will be seriously compromised if the organization does not have the appropriate bioinformatics expertise and computational infrastructure.” Among other things “Should this occur, CDC will be at risk of going from outdated, to obsolete, and then to irrelevant”
President Obama’s 2014 budget gave life to CDC’s AMD initiative, which may have been motivated with the threat of an” emerging variety of highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria” called superbugs!
Using next-generation sequencing technology to identify complete genetic sequences of microorganisms, the CDC aimed to user a “new era for controlling infectious threats” and “revolutionizing” its “ability to diagnose infectious diseases, investigate and control outbreaks, understand transmission patterns, develop and target vaccines, and determine antimicrobial resistance—all with increased timeliness and accuracy and decreased costs”. [1]
CDC claim “each year the flu costs businesses approximately $10.4 billion in direct costs for hospitalizations and outpatient visits for adults.” CDCs intention is to detect patterns more precisely in order to make better vaccines!
Fast forward November 2020 and AMD becomes the precursor to CDC’s NS3 and SPHERES SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequencing efforts. [It’s as though they knew the virus would mutate and accelerate variants after vaccine rollout!]