Infectious Disease

Chartered by the 'Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007' ® (Public Law 110-53), the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) is housed within the Department of Homeland Security. The mission of NBIC is to enable early warning and shared situational awareness of acute biological events and support better decisions by federal agency partners and the agencies of state, local, and tribal governments. It does this through the rapid identification, characterization, localization, and tracking of biological events worldwide (whether they occur in the human, animal, plant, or environmental realms) that may have an impact on the U.S. homeland. During the spring of 2013 there were human disease outbreaks caused by two emerging novel viruses: Avian Influenza A (H7N9) virus in China and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in multiple countries in the Middle East and Europe. During these two events NBIC leveraged its expertise in enhancing collaboration and shared situational awareness among federal agencies.

Objective

To demonstrate NBIC's innovative approach in facilitating information sharing among U.S. federal agencies during the recent outbreaks of H7N9 influenza and MERS-CoV.

Since April 2012, an integrated syndromic surveillance system (ISSC) has been established in health facilities, pharmacies and primary schools in two rural counties of Jiangxi Province, China (1). The objective of ISSC is to integrate syndromic surveillance with case report system for infectious disease to improve the early detection of disease outbreak in rural China. Varicella is a common respiratory infectious disease among children. In most cases, it is mild but it might cause severe complications including, pneumonia, meningitis, even death (2). In this study, varicella related school absenteeism and outpatient visits in health facilities in the surveillance sites of ISSC were collected and analyzed.

Objective

To describe the features of varicella outbreak in rural primary schools and the impacts of school absenteeism surveillance on early detection of infectious disease outbreak.

MOH's national sentinel surveillance programme for influenza is part of the WHO international laboratory-based surveillance network to detect the emergence and spread of new antigenic variants of influenza viruses. Virological sample collection is on-going and is carried out during both outbreak and non-outbreak periods.In 2011 and 2012, the sentinel surveillance programme involved a total of 169 sites (18 government primary care clinics and 151 private/general practitioner [GP] clinics).

Objective

 We evaluated the Singapore Ministry of Health's sentinel surveillance system for influenza virus, which included the monitoring of virological samples from patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) seen at government primary care clinics and private general practitioner clinics in 2011-12.

Chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection which can lead to adverse reproductive health outcomes if untreated, is the most commonly reported nationally notifable disease in the United States.[1] Complete and valid demographic, geographic, and diagnosis-related data are needed to identify trends, describe populations most impacted by disease, identify inequities, and inform and evaluate prevention activities.

Objective

To assess the completeness of key variables included in Chlamydia trachomatis (chlamydia) case report data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during 2012.

We describe age- and syndrome-specific emergency department (ED) visit patterns for diarrhea and vomiting associated with periods of confirmed epidemic rotavirus and presumed epidemic norovirus in New York City (NYC).

Calls to NHS Direct (a national UK telephone health advice line) which may be indicative of infection show marked seasonal variation, often peaking during winter or early spring. This variation may be related to the seasonality of common viruses. There is currently no routine microbiological confirmation of the cause of illness in NHS Direct callers. Modelling trends in NHS Direct syndromic call data against laboratory data may help by attributing the likely cause of these calls the and surveillance ‘signals’ generated by syndromic surveillance.

Multiple linear regression has been used previously to estimate the contribution of rotavirus and RSV to hospital admission for infectious intestinal disease and lower respiratory tract infections respectively. We applied a similar regression model to NHS Direct syndromic surveillance data and laboratory reports.

Objective

To provide weekly estimates of the proportions of NHS Direct respiratory calls attributable to common infectious disease pathogens.

Security threats and the recent emergence of avian influenza in Europe have heightened the profile of and need for a good surveillance strategy during such events. The two main rationales for enhanced infectious disease surveillance at mass events include a perceived increased risk of infectious disease events and a need to detect and respond to events more quickly. Moreover, the requirements of the International Health Regulations (IHR) issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), which take effect in mid-2007, define the need for timely reporting of infectious diseases during international mass events [1]. Therefore, an enhanced surveillance, based on Germany’s pre-existing system of mandatory notifications was conducted in the12 World Cup cities.

Objective

In this abstract, we describe the major findings of an evaluation of our enhanced infectious disease surveillance activities during the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany.