{"id":11763,"date":"2026-04-25T15:05:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/nancy-cox-a-cdc-veteran-and-a-stalwart-in-global-flu-research-dies-at-77-statnews-com\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:05:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:05:26","slug":"nancy-cox-a-cdc-veteran-and-a-stalwart-in-global-flu-research-dies-at-77-statnews-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/nancy-cox-a-cdc-veteran-and-a-stalwart-in-global-flu-research-dies-at-77-statnews-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Cox, a CDC veteran and a stalwart in global flu research, dies at 77 – statnews.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Helen Branswell<\/a>
April 25, 2026
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInfectious Diseases Correspondent\t\t\t\t\t\t
Helen Branswell<\/a>
Helen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon<\/a> and Bluesky<\/a>. You can reach Helen on Signal at hbranswell.01.
Nancy Cox, who for decades was a global leader in influenza research, has died. Cox headed the influenza team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 22 years, shepherding it from a branch of 14 people to a division of over 100. She was also director of the World Health Organization\u2019s Collaborating Center for the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Control of Influenza at the CDC.
Cox died Thursday from glioblastoma, a cancer of the brain. She was 77.
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A virologist, Cox led the CDC\u2019s efforts to respond to seasonal flu and prepare for pandemic influenza. But she was at least as well known for her work fostering global efforts to enhance monitoring for the evolution of seasonal flu viruses and spot emerging viruses with pandemic potential.\u00a0
\u201cShe was a critical component of connecting countries all around the globe,\u201d said Daniel Jernigan, who served as deputy director of the flu division under Cox, taking over when she retired in 2014. \u201cBecause of her vision, we are better prepared for pandemics and providing better prevention of influenza illness and death.\u201d
Cox and the team she led contributed substantially to the current surveillance system that underpins the annual updating of flu vaccines.
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\u201cShe was central to the integration of modern technologies into vaccine strain selection and pandemic preparedness activities and was always the first to remind everyone what was at stake, the health of millions,\u201d said Richard Webby, head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital, in Memphis.
Scientists who worked for and collaborated with Cox were quick to praise her dedication, her diplomacy, and her efforts to expand global flu surveillance.\u00a0
\u201cThere are a lot of really great scientists involved in influenza. \u2026 But nobody had the kind of respect and breadth and reverence that Nancy had. And it was really clear why,\u201d said Keiji Fukuda, who was chief of influenza epidemiology under Cox before moving to the WHO\u2019s influenza program in 2005.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cPart of it is that she just knew so much about influenza \u2014 the science, the history, the contemporary milieu. Part of it was because she was kind of at the nexus of science and public health. But I think a lot of it was just because of how she was.\u201d
People who knew Cox describe a scientist who was deeply knowledgeable about influenza but also a strong and supportive leader. Arnold Monto, a veteran flu researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, said it was important to Cox to help junior colleagues expand their skills, \u201cso that they really developed and flourished.\u201d
She was a terrific boss, said Fukuda, who is now retired.
\u201cShe could be goofy. She could be funny. \u2029She could be girlish. And she could be very stern when she was upset,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what you knew is that she was always attentive, and she was fair, she didn\u2019t micromanage, and she expected you to work hard. And when you looked at her as an example, you just were working for somebody that you wanted to work hard for.\u201d\u00a0
Born and raised in rural Iowa, Cox received a bachelor\u2019s degree in bacteriology from Iowa State University. She then attended the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, on a Marshall fellowship, where she received a doctorate in virology.\u00a0
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She joined the CDC in 1975, and was named head of the influenza branch in 1992.\u00a0
Interest in her field exploded in the late 1990s and again in the mid-aughts when the H5N1 bird flu virus began infecting and killing mass numbers of poultry in China and other parts of Southeast Asia \u2014 and infecting and killing some people as well. There was enormous concern the world was on the verge of what would have been the first flu pandemic in more than three decades, with all signs at the time pointing to the possibility it might be extraordinarily severe. In the early days of detection of human H5N1 infections, roughly half of confirmed cases died.\u00a0
Cox and others aggressively promoted the need for pandemic preparedness.
\u201c\u200b\u200bShe was the focal point of influenza response, surveillance, and research in this country,\u201d said Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.\u00a0
\u201cShe was very, very, very well respected by colleagues at NIH, including me.\u201d
In 2006, Cox was named Federal Employee of the Year<\/a> by the Partnership for Public Service, a nongovernmental organization that promotes excellence in government employees. The same year she made the Time Top 100 list<\/a> in a class that included Oprah, Bill and Melinda Gates, Hillary Clinton, and then President George W. Bush.\u00a0
Despite the fact that H5N1 continues to this day to wreak havoc on poultry operations and infect an astonishing array of mammals<\/a> \u2014 including the occasional person \u2014\u00a0it has not triggered a pandemic. In an article<\/a> STAT published in 2019, Cox warned against complacency towards this virus.
\u201cWe don\u2019t know how the story\u2019s going to end,\u201d she said.\u00a0
After the startling 2024 discovery that H5N1 was infecting dairy cows in the United States, Cox marveled at how it continues to rewrite influenza dogma<\/a>. \u201cIt seems that these viruses must have some kind of \u2018special sauce\u2019 that has allowed them to find ways to persistently spread, evolve, and cause what appear to be increasingly serious problems in both wildlife and domesticated animals,\u201d she told STAT in an email.
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Influenza is a famously mercurial virus. Cox often said: \u201cIf you\u2019ve seen one flu season, you\u2019ve seen one flu season.\u201d Still, influenza scientists were taken by surprise in 2009 when instead of the feared bird flu pandemic, the world was hit with a pandemic caused by an H1N1 virus that had evolved in pigs. Though the virus was thought to have emerged in Mexico, the first two confirmed cases were children in California who had no connections to pigs or to each other. The CDC was at the center of figuring out what was happening.
Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was acting CDC director at the time. He recalled his many interactions with Cox that tense spring. \u201cIn briefings to the public, she gave the country confidence that we were doing all that we could to protect the health of people here and around the world. She modeled what it was to be a true public servant,\u201d he said.
As she and her team were racing to trace the origins of the virus and how far it had spread, Cox suffered a personal tragedy. Her house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Fortunately no one was hurt.\u00a0
She was reported<\/a> to have been back at work the next day in clothes that smelled of smoke. \u201cIt was devastating,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I flipped a switch in my mind to concentrate on what we thought might turn into a pandemic.\u201d\u00a0
During her time at the helm of the CDC\u2019s flu operations, global sharing of influenza viruses was an ongoing challenge \u2014\u00a0one that Cox tackled relentlessly. Kanta Subbarao, who worked under Cox as section head for molecular genetics for a time \u2014\u00a0and later headed to Australia to run a WHO flu collaborating center there \u2014 said Cox worked hard to build relationships with influenza scientists in a number of countries, including China, and to help them increase their scientific capacity.
\u201cWe had Chinese scientists [training at CDC] and we had collaborations and co-authorships and so on. So I think she worked very hard to try to bring them into the global umbrella of influenza surveillance,\u201d said Subbarao, who is now in the department of microbiology and immunology at Laval University in Quebec City.
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Jernigan said Cox\u2019s diplomatic skills served the world well. \u201cShe recognized that you don\u2019t compel sharing, you really invite it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you do that through opening up and providing something and bringing something to the table.\u201d
Cox is survived by her husband, Evan, a daughter, a stepson, and four grandchildren.\u00a0
Helen Branswell<\/a>
Infectious Diseases Correspondent
Helen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon<\/a> and Bluesky<\/a>. You can reach Helen on Signal at hbranswell.01.
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Home What's the word?Test your knowledge with our new weekday mini crosswordBy Helen BranswellApril 25, 2026 Infectious Diseases Correspondent Helen BranswellHelen Branswell covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development. Follow her on Mastodon and Bluesky. You can reach Helen on Signal at hbranswell.01.Nancy Cox, who for decades was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}