CDC
The CDC (Abbreviation for Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is an organization in-game. The CDC issues gray news headlines, such as "1 out of every 5 Americans is overweight," and such, similar to what the WHO does in real life. Although they are supposed to find cures for diseases in real life, WHO performs this task in Plague Inc.
The CDC can also find Patient Zero of the player's plague. This event has no real effect on the game, unless they can find Patient Zero, which accelerates the cure development. Preventing this unlocks the achievement Patient Who?. One thing to note is that this achievement will not be attained if the player uses cheats.
Ndemic is not officially partnered with the CDC.[1]
Additional Notes
On March 20, 2013, James Vaughan (creator of Ndemic) spoke to CDC staff about the game (quote from article):
"What did you learn at CDC?"
"It was fascinating to meet the people who are working hard every day to keep us safe from the type of threats that Plague Inc. features. I got a tour of the Emergency Operations Center and Broadcast Center, as well as a trip to the CDC museum. This gave me a lot of contextual information about how the CDC works, which will help me add a greater level of realism to the game in the future – especially in terms of how humanity reacts to outbreaks."[2]