Seven divisions whose combined expertise is the point

The **National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
(NCEZID)** is made up of seven divisions and three offices, working with
partners across the United States and around the world to prevent illness,
disability and death from a wide range of infectious diseases.

Why the structure matters

**Because the diverse workforces of these divisions include an equally broad
spectrum of infectious disease expertise, we are better able to identify
mysterious — and sometimes very lethal — illnesses, contain outbreaks that
sometimes span many states, and save lives.**

That sentence is an argument for breadth over specialisation, and it is
correct for the specific problem this centre faces.

An unidentified cluster of severe illness does not arrive labelled. It might be
foodborne, waterborne, carried by a tick, imported by a traveller, or acquired
in a hospital — and the investigation that identifies it has to be able to ask
all of those questions at once, quickly, without a referral to another agency.

A centre organised the other way, with each specialism in its own building,
would answer each question well and the combined one slowly.

Two of the divisions

• Division of Global Migration Health — works to ensure **safe global
  movement to protect human health**
• Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases

The first of those is the one people would not guess belongs alongside
foodborne illness. It does, because a pathogen's route into a country and its
route into a person are the same investigation viewed at different scales.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.