Early Identification of Salmonella Cases Using Syndromic Surveillance

On June 7, 2008, federal food protection and public health agencies alerted consumers of a nationwide outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul infections. As of June 30, 2008, 851 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint had been identified in 36 states and the District of Columbia since April 20081. On June 13, 2008, Maryland confirmed its first case of Salmonella Saintpaul infection matching the national outbreak strain and as of June 30, 2008, 29 cases of Salmonella related to the outbreak have been identified.

Objective 

The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of syndromic surveillance emergency department data as a tool for enhanced case finding of outbreak-related illnesses.