This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

One of the major health agenciesin the United States is the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention. It is known as the C-D-C. "Prevention" was added to thename later. The agency has many jobs. For example, it recentlyprovided information to the public about ricin. Some of that poisonhad been found in a Senate office building in Washington. The C-D-Cadvised people about ways to stay safe if they ever found ricin.

The C-D-C warns, advises and reports on health subjects fromaround the world. For example, it is currently providing informationabout avian influenza. The outbreak of bird flu in Asia has killedmore than twenty people in Thailand and Vietnam.

The agency also is advising people how to protect against coldweather and poorly heated homes in winter. And the C-D-C just gaveAmericans the newest estimate of how long they can expect to live.In two-thousand-two, average life expectancy reachedseventy-seven-point-four years. But the C-D-C also reported anincrease in the rate of deaths among newborn babies that year. Itwas the first increase in the United States sincenineteen-fifty-eight.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an agencywithin the Department of Health and Human Services. Its main officesand laboratories are in Atlanta, Georgia.Eight-thousand-five-hundred people work for the C-D-C. These includedoctors, nurses, scientists, engineers and others. They all havesome part in trying to learn how diseases start, and where and howthey spread.

C-D-C laboratories examine tissue, blood and other substances tohelp identify diseases. For example, the C-D-C recently confirmedthe presence in Bangladesh of a viral infection similar to the Nipahvirus. This virus was first recognized in nineteen-ninety-nine inNipah, Malaysia. It was blamed for widespread cases of encephalitis,a brain infection. More than one-hundred people died of the disease.

C-D-C experts are ready to travel anywhere in the world to helpdeal with outbreaks of disease. The faster the cause is identified,the faster health workers can take steps to contain and control it.

The C-D-C Web site offers information about how to prevent andtreat a number of sicknesses, and how to stay healthy. The addressis w-w-w dot c-d-c dot g-o-v.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by JerilynWatson.