General - ISDS

Identifying, solving, and stopping foodborne outbreaks in the U.S. requires the collaboration and coordination of multiple federal agencies and centers as well as state and local authorities. FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation (CORE) Network is responsible for outbreak surveillance, response, and post-response activities related to incidents involving multiple illnesses linked to FDA-regulated food. CORE collaborates with CDC to obtain data on foodborne illnesses and illness clusters and with FDA Centers and field staff to obtain laboratory and inspectional information related to contaminated foods and foodborne illness outbreaks. CORE’s Signals and Surveillance team coordinates isolate tracking activities among several organizations within FDA and CDC and the isolate database was developed for timely information sharing and early signal detection. 

Objective

To create a forum and database for FDA and CDC epidemiologists, laboratorians, and outbreak scientists for tracking recent food and environmental surveillance sampling isolates identified through Reportable Food Registries reports and regulatory inspectional findings, and analyzing them for matches to clinical isolates for early outbreak detection. 

Immunization is one of the safest and most effective interventions to prevent disease and early child death. Although, about three quarters of the world’s child population is reached with the required vaccines, only half of the children in Sub-Saharan Africa get access to basic immunization. A substantial number of children worldwide do not complete immunization schedules because neither health services nor conventional communication mechanisms regularly reach their communities. Separate studies in Australia and Papua New Guinea have shown that knowledge gaps underlie low compliance with vaccination schedules. Mothers are less likely to complete immunization schedules if they are poorly Informed about the need for immunization, logistics (which includes time, date, and place of vaccination), and the appropriate series of vaccines to be followed. Although knowledge in itself is insufficient to create demand, poor knowledge about the need for vaccination and when the next vaccination is due is a good indicator of poor compliance. Up-to-date, complete, and scientifically valid information about vaccines can help parents to make informed decisions.

Immunity gap created by this low immunization coverage in Northern Nigeria favors the emergence and transmission of some vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) especially measles and polio. 

Objectives

1. To assess the knowledge, perception, and practices of mothers/ caregivers on vaccine preventable diseases in children aged 12-23 months in Kaduna State, Nigeria

2. To determine the immunization coverages in Kaduna State, Nigeria

3. To determine the sources of information on routine immunization among mothers/caregivers of children aged 12-23months in the study area 

The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) held its fifteenth annual conference in Atlanta, GA, from December 6-8, 2016. Since 2001, individuals interested in sharing and learning emerging trends in surveillance research and practice have found the ISDS Annual Conference a unique forum to advance their knowledge in the discipline of disease surveillance. The 15th ISDS conference received a total of 233 abstracts from 23 countries. From the submissions, 189

(81%) were accepted for presentation at the conference as an oral presentation (N=96) or poster (N=93). The theme for the 15th annual conference was New Frontiers in Surveillance: Data Science and Health Security. The theme united two dominant trends in public health surveillance: 1) a growing desire to extract knowledge from increasing volumes of structured and unstructured data available from health information systems; and 2) increased pressure on nations to strengthen their capacity for disease surveillance and response to outbreaks when and where they occur across the globe. In addition to the major themes of the conference, abstracts were accepted in additional tracks that remain important to the practice of public health around the world: One Health uniting animal and human health; Methodological advances in applied epidemiology; Public health informatics; Public health policy; and Biosurveillance practice.