Infectious Disease

Local transmission of Zika virus has been confirmed in 67 countries worldwide and in 46 countries or territories in the Americas. On February 1, 2016 the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern due to the increase in microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported in Brazil. Several countries issued travel warnings for pregnant women travelling to Zika-affected countries with Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and El Salvador advising against pregnancy. The risk of local transmission in unaffected regions is unknown but potentially significant where competent Zika vectors are present and also given the additional complexities of sexual transmission and population mobility. Despite the rapid spread of Zika virus across the Americas and global concerns regarding its effects on fetuses, little is known about the pattern of spread. Knowledge of the direction and the speed of movement of disease is invaluable for public health response planning, including the timing and placement of interventions.

Objective

To estimate the velocity of Zika virus disease spread in Brazil using data on confirmed Zika virus disease cases at the municipal-level.

Rabies is a zoonotic disease of high public health importance. There have been documented reports of rabies in vaccinated dogs. Rabies is enzootic in domestic dogs in Nigeria. Hence, annual vaccination campaigns of dogs are advocated with the aim of rabies elimination. Vaccination status, type of vaccination and the immunogenicity of the various rabies vaccines used in Abuja Nigeria has not been studied. To date, no effective medical therapy has been established for rabies. Most human rabies deaths occur in the developing countries and though effective and economical control measures are available their application in developing countries is hampered by a range of economic, social and political factors. It is widely recognized that the number of deaths officially reported in most developing countries greatly underestimates the true incidence of disease, with several factors contributing to widespread underreporting. Preventive vaccination against rabies virus is a highly effective method for preventing rabies in humans and animals but do people vaccinate and how long does the immunity conferred by the vaccine remain protective in the dogs in Abuja. Rabies has high financial expenditure burden on any country where it is endemic mainly associated with costs incurred on post-exposure prophylaxis (determined by the type of vaccine, vaccine regimen and route of administration as well as the type of immunoglobulin used).

Objective

To determine the vaccination status of owned dogs, assess the rabies antibody titre of vaccinated dogs and risk factors associated with vaccination of dogs in Abuja, Nigeria.

School-based influenza surveillance has been considered for real-time monitoring of influenza, as children 5-17 years old play an important role in community-level transmission.

Objective

To determine if all-cause and cause-specific school absences improve predictions of virologically confirmed influenza in the community.

Despite the significance of disease reporting to any health system, Grenada like most countries struggle with underreporting of notifiable diseases by physicians. In order to improve the national disease surveillance system in Grenada, it is critical understand the reasons for any underreporting. The study was conducted to determine physicians’ knowledge of notifiable reporting and to identify the barriers to reporting.

Objective

The study was carried out to determine physicians’ knowledge of notifiable reporting and to identify the barriers to reporting in Grenada

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a zoonotic, protozoal infection that is endemic in Georgia, which commonly affects young children. In recent years, the incidence of VL has increased sharply and the geographic distribution has increased. Recently, VL moved to highly populated areas as new foci appeared from 2010-2015, during which, 610 laboratory confirmed cases of VL were registered in Georgia. The majority of cases were found in East Georgia (94.2%) and 5.8% of cases in West Georgia (representing new foci of VL in Georgia).

Objective

The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology of visceral leishmaniasis in Georgia and to define new control measures.

Newcastle disease (ND) is the most important infectious viral disease of poultry. The world-wide economic loss from it is 2-3 billion USD per year. ND is reportable to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). ND is caused by virulent strains of avian Paramyxoviruses belonging to type 1. Industrial poultry farming is rapidly developing in Ukraine. Ornithological fauna of Ukraine includes about four hundred species of birds, 207 of which nest within its borders. The territory of Ukraine transits 3 out of 14 transcontinental global migration flows. The wild birds are the main natural reservoir of ND agents. It is necessary to control the intensity of post-vaccination immunity in poultry and the timing of revaccinations. OIE recommends enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and HI test for these purposes. However, it should be noted that HI test, possessing high specificity and sensitivity, is much cheaper. Therefore, it is the excellent means for ND timely surveillance.

Objective

A test kit for the detection of antibodies to Newcastle disease virus (NDV) based on haemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay has been developed and introduced into practice for the first time in Ukraine.

The mortality monitoring system (initiated in 2009 during the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic) is a collaboration between the Centre for Infectious Disease Control (CIb) and Statistics Netherlands. The system monitors nation-wide reported number of deaths (population size 2014: 16.8 million) from all causes, as cause of death information is not available real-time. Data is received from Statistics Netherlands by weekly emails. 

Objective

Weekly numbers of deaths are monitored to increase the capacity to deal with both expected and unusual (disease) events such as pandemic influenza, other infections and non-infectious incidents. The monitoring information can potentially be used to detect, track and estimate the impact of an outbreak or incident on all-cause mortality. 

The first travel-associated cases of Zika virus infection in New York City (NYC) were identified in January 2016. Local transmission of Zika virus from imported cases is possible due to presence of Aedes albopictus mosquitos. Timely detection of local Zika virus transmission could inform public health interventions and mitigate additional spread of illness. Daily emergency department (ED) visit surveillance to detect individual cases and spatio-temporal clusters of locally-acquired Zika virus disease was initiated in June 2016. 

Objective

Case and cluster identification of emergency department visits related to local transmission of Zika virus.