Lt Col Mark Duffy of USAF School of Aerospace Medicine Receives the 2010 James H. Nakano Citation for the Article "Zika Virus Outbreak on Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia"

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  • By E'Lisa Wilcox
  • 711 HPW/XP
Wright-Patterson AFB, OH --  Lieutenant Colonel Mark Duffy, operational support section chief, Epidemiology Consult Service with the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine was awarded the James H. Nakano Citation at an awards ceremony on Aug. 24 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. The award is given by the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases division of the Centers for Disease Control to recognize outstanding papers in the field of assessment in epidemiology.

In 2006, Colonel Duffy was assigned by the Air Force to work with the CDC as part of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. The Air Force provides public health officers the opportunity to work in the CDC's EIS in order to advance their training and gain experience with outbreak investigations.

During Colonel Duffy's assignment with EIS he was sent to Yap Island as the lead investigator on an outbreak of unknown origin. The small island located in Micronesia had a proportionally large percentage of inhabitants presenting with rash, fever, joint pain and eye inflamation. At first, investigators did not recognize the causal agent of the unusual condition. Eventually the CDC Arboviral Diseases Branch Laboratory determined, from blood samples, that the responsible virus was the poorly described Zika virus.

"The Zika virus disease was rarely recognized at this point and only 14 cases had been reported ever in the literature," Colonel Duffy said. "And, so, we were sitting there on an island where we had a significant outbreak of Zika virus disease, and we took the opportunity at that point to study this virus in an outbreak setting; that had never before been described."

The investigation team soon expanded to include different agencies within the CDC, the World Health Organization, and the Pasteur Institute, according to Colonel Duffy.
The team's results showed that 73 percent of the populations of the island were likely infected with Zika, but there were no deaths or hospitalizations due to the virus.

ABOUT the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine:
The 711th Human Performance Wing's USAF School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) is the premier institute for research, education, and worldwide operational consultation in Aerospace Medicine. It is the oldest continually operating institution of its kind. USAFSAM has guided the advancement of aerospace medicine and human performance from the beginnings of aviation through the onset of the space age and into the present.