Infectious Disease

From 1 September 2015, babies in the United Kingdom (UK) born on/after 1 July 2015 became eligible to receive the MenB vaccine, given at 2 and 4 months of age, with a booster at 12 months. Early trials found a high prevalence of fever (over 38°C) in babies given the vaccine with other routine vaccines at 2 and 4 months. We used syndromic surveillance data to assess whether there had been increased family doctor (general practitioner (GP)) consultations for fever in young infants following the introduction of the vaccine. 

Objective

To use syndromic surveillance data to assess whether there has been an increase in GP fever consultations since the inclusion of the meningococcal B (MenB) vaccine in the UK vaccination schedule. 

Zika virus spread quickly through South and Central America in 2015. The City of Houston saw its first travel-related Zika cases in December of 2015. On January 29th, the City held the first planning meeting with regional partners from healthcare, blood banks, petrochemical companies, mosquito control, and others. Additionally the City activated Incident Command Structure (ICS) and designated the Public Health Authority as the Incident Commander.

Initial steps taken by HHD included expanding the capability and capacity of the public health laboratory to test for Zika virus; expand surveillance efforts; created an educational campaign around the “3Ds” of Zika defense (Drain, Dress, DEET) which were then disseminated through several means, including a mass mailing with water bills; and provided DEET to mothers through the WIC program.

The Houston Health Department took the lead in authoring the City’s Zika Action Plan. In this 3 goals and 6 strategies were identified. Goals included 1) Keep Houstonians and visitors aware of the threat of Zika; 2) minimize the spread of the virus; and 3) protect pregnant women from the virus. The 6 strategies employed were to A) develop preparedness plans; B) implement ICS within the City; C) ensure situational awareness through surveillance; D) Increase community awareness; E) reduce opportunities for Zika mosquito breeding grounds; and F) provide direct intervention to reduce the threat of Zika.

HHD was responsible for many of the action items within the plan. We conducted several community outreach events, where we disseminated educational materials, t-shirts, DEET, and other give- aways. These events allowed frequent engagement with the public for bidrectional communication on how to approach the threat. 

Objective

This session will explore the role of the Houston Health Department (HHD) in the City of Houston’s response to the threat of Zika. The panelists will provide perspective from the roles of Bureau Chief, informatician, and epidemiologist and provide insight into lessons learned and strategic successes. 

Circumstances within the military environment may place military personnel at increased risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STI) including HIV. HIV bio-behavioral risk studies provide a critical source of data to estimate HIV/STI prevalence and identify risk factors, allowing programs to maximize impact by focusing on the drivers of the epidemic. 

Objective

We present lessons learned from over a decade of HIV bio- behavioral risk study implementation and capacity-building in African militaries. 

Annually sporadic cases of tularemia in humans are registered in Ukraine and new enzootic areas are found. Monitoring of tularemia natural foci is important given the potential significant financial losses in case of tularemia outbreaks and taken into account that this pathogen can be used as a bioterrorist agent.

Objective

Study the activity of natural foci of tularemia and identify the main types of reservoirs and vectors of Francisella tularensis.

Zika virus was declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization on February 1, 2016. With Georgia hosting the world’s busiest international airport and a sub- tropical climate that can support the primary Zika virus vector, Aedes aegypti, and secondary vector, Aedes albopictus, the CDC designated Georgia as a high risk state for vector transmission. Faced with a lack of mosquito surveillance data to evaluate risk of autochthonous transmission and a few counties statewide that provide comprehensive mosquito control, the DPH rapidly scaled up a response. DPH updated existing mosquito surveillance and response plans targeted for West Nile Virus (WNV) and expanded capacity to areas that lacked previous surveillance targeting the Zika virus vector. 

Objective

To describe the Georgia Department of Public Health’s (DPH) mosquito surveillance capacity before and after Zika virus was declared a public health emergency, review and compare mosquito surveillance results from 2015 to 2016, and evaluate the risk of autochthonous vector transmission of Zika virus based on 2016 surveillance data of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. 

Epidemiological modeling for infectious disease is useful for disease management and routine implementation needs to be facilitated through better description of models in an operational context. A standardized model characterization process that allows selection or making manual comparisons of available models and their results is currently lacking. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has developed a comprehensive framework that can be used to characterize an infectious disease model in an operational context. We offer this framework and an associated database to stakeholders of the infectious disease modeling field as a tool for standardizing model

description and facilitating the use of epidemiological models. Such a framework could help the understanding of diverse models by various stakeholders with different preconceptions, backgrounds, expertise, and needs, and can foster greater use of epidemiological models as tools in infectious disease surveillance.

Objectives

1. To develop a comprehensive model characterization framework to describe epidemiological models in an operational context.

2. To apply the framework to characterize “operational” models for specific infectious diseases and provide a web-based directory, the biosurveillance analytics resource directory (BARD) to the global infectious disease surveillance community.

To describe the results of the new organization of influenza surveillance in France, based on a regional approach. This regional multi-source approach has been made possible by the sharing of data visualizations and statistical results through a web application. This application helped detecting early the epidemic start and allowed a reactive communication with the regional health authorities in charge of the organization of health care, the management and the setting up of the appropriate preventive measures.

To describe the Caribbean Public Health Agency’s (CARPHA) Tourism and Health Information System (THiS), a web-based syndromic surveillance system to increase the capacity of Caribbean countries to monitor the health of visitors and staff in hotels, and detect potential infectious disease outbreaks for early and coordinated public health response.

Vaccination is one of the most successful public health interventions. Despite this, there are a variety of reasons that VPDs continue to be seen in developed countries such as Canada. This analysis describes the recent trends in the burden of disease and mortality associated with VPDs for which publicly funded vaccination programs for infants or children are implemented across the country and for which national surveillance data are available. 

Objective

To describe the recent trends in the burden of disease and mortality associated with vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs).

Hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) is a common childhood illness and the drivers of HFMD incidence are still not clear [1]. In mainland China, continuing and increasing HFMD epidemics have been recorded since 2008, causing millions of infections and hundreds of deaths annually. In Beijing, 28,667 cases were reported in 2015 and the incidence was 133.28/100,000. The variations in Beijing HFMD epidemics over population, space, and time that have been revealed [2] emphasize the need for further research about risk factors of HFMD occurrence. This study aims to explore local effects on HFMD incidence led by potential factors. 

Objective

HFMD incidence varies between geographic regions at the township in Beijing. The objective of this study was to examine spatial heterogeneity for the association between HFMD incidence and demographic and socioeconomic factors.