Raphael Warnock: “I rise today to extend my most sincere gratitude to Rima Khabbaz, MD, the director of the National Center for Emerging…”

“I rise today to extend my most sincere gratitude to Rima Khabbaz, MD, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Dr. Khabbaz is retiring after spending 38 years at NCEZID, where her work focused on fighting the spread of infectious diseases. For the past 5 years at NCEZID, Dr. Khabbaz has led staff who monitor and work to control dangerous pathogens in the United States and across the world. Her time as NCEZID director concludes three decades of leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is headquartered in the great State of Georgia, beginning with her role as chief of the Human Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit in CDC's Hantavirus Task Force in 1993 and 1994. Dr. Khabbaz began her career at CDC as an epidemic intelligence service officer in CDC's Hospital Infections Program from 1980 through 1982. She returned to CDC in 1986 and a year later became a medical epidemiologist in the Retrovirus Diseases Branch. She quickly took up leadership roles in historic outbreak responses, including those for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, anthrax, SARS, monkeypox, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19. Over the past two decades, Dr. Khabbaz has led CDC's infectious disease activities through some turbulent times and at the highest levels.…”