West Nile Virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause meningitis and encephalitis. Since its discovery in New York City during an encephalitis outbreak in 1999, WNV has become endemic in North America. In the United States, 16,000 human WNV disease cases (including West Nile fever, meningitis, encephalitis, and unspecified clinical illness) and over 600 WNV-related deaths have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control from 46 states. Perennial WNV epidemics occur during summer months, peaking during late August. BioSense Early Event Detection and Situation Awareness System receives daily laboratory test order data feed in HL7 from Laboratory Corporation of America. In this study, test orders were studied for their correlation with WNV activity.
Objective
To determine the feasibility of using BioSense laboratory test order data for West Nile disease surveillance in the United States.