Planning

Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) is a strategy conceived and adopted by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa in 1998. The goal of IDSR is to support PHSS in Africa and enhance efficiency and communication across all levels of the national public health system. IDSR emphasizes the commitment of the revised International Health Regulations [IHR (2005)] to strengthen and maintain core capacities to detect, assess, report, and respond to public health events of international concern.

In February 2014, the Sudan Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), requested an assessment of PHS with attention to PHSS integration opportunities and enhancing their ability to meet IHR (2005) requirements. A WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (WHO/EMRO) team of consultants performed this mission in collaboration with the FMoH.

Objective

This presentation aims to discuss the need and share the results from an international, multi-disciplinary mission to assess public health surveillance (PHS) in Sudan and develop a plan of action (PoA) to strengthen PHS through integration. We will present the findings of the mission and the resulting PoA developed for Public Health Surveillance Strengthening (PHSS) designed to rapidly detect, report and respond to infectious diseases and establish sustainable, integrated One Health concepts.

Public health practitioners endeavor to expand and refine their syndromic and other advanced surveillance systems that are designed to supplement their existing laboratory testing and disease surveillance toolkit. While much of the development and widespread implementation of these systems had been supported by public health preparedness funding, the reduction of these monies has greatly constrained the ability of public health agencies to staff and maintain these systems. The appearance of H3N2v and other novel influenza A viruses required agencies to carefully identify which systems provide the most cost-effective data to support their public health practice. Recent Enterovirus D68 outbreaks, along with the global emergence of influenza A (H7N9), the global emergence of influenza A (H7N9), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Ebola virus strains, and other viruses associated with high mortality, emphasize the importance of maintaining vigilance for the presence of emerging disease.

Objective

To identify and characterize challenges experienced by public health practitioners conducting surveillance for the presence of influenza, novel respiratory diseases, and globally emerging viruses in an era of limited resources.

During all phases of the disaster management cycle, PH surveillance plays a valuable role. Surveillance provides PH officials and stakeholders the information they need to respond to disasters and take action in an appropriate and timely manner. Despite the fact that surveillance provides a valuable function in disasters, a study by the Disaster Epidemiology Subcommittee of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) found that there are still significant differences, across states, in their use of disaster surveillance. Further, there is no standardized guidance on implementing or modifying surveillance for a domestic disaster. This document seeks to fill this gap, providing guidance on planning, initiating, conducting, and evaluating disaster PH surveillance in the U.S.

Objective

Our objectives are to describe and receive feedback on a disaster surveillance guidance document that can be used by state and local health departments, to fill the gaps in public health (PH) disaster morbidity and mortality surveillance.

The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 mandated establishing an integrated national public health surveillance system for early detection and rapid assessment of potential bioterrorism-related illness. In 2003, CDC created and launched the BioSense software program. At that time, CDC’s focus was on rapidly developing and implementing Web-based software to collect hospital emergency department data for analysis to detect and monitor syndromes of public health importance. During the ensuing decade, BioSense evolved and now is part of CDC’s renamed National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). The broader vision of NSSP aims to achieve two key goals: significantly improve technical capabilities for collecting and analyzing syndromic surveillance data, and to create and facilitate opportunities for collaboration among local, state, and national public health programs. Through NSSP, the syndromic surveillance community can be strengthened by access to improved technical capacity and to best-practices knowledge sharing among syndromic surveillance professionals. These NSSP initiatives can help the nation-wide public health community strengthen situational awareness and enhance response capability to hazardous events. NSSP encompasses people, partners, policies, information systems, standards, and resources. Session attendees will learn more about NSSP, its growing group of partners, what the program is doing now, and its future.

Objective

Inform conference attendees about the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP), various program-related projects and who is working on them, what was accomplished during the past year, and NSSP-development plans for the future.

The mission of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH; Arizona) is to protect and promote the health and well-being of its residents and visitors. Surveillance efforts allow epidemiologists to quantify and characterize public health threats, but traditional methods take time. In an effort to enhance situational awareness, the Office of Epidemiology dedicated resources to begin developing a robust syndromic surveillance program. This abstract outlines steps for enhancing syndromic surveillance at a local public health department.

Objective

To demonstrate how a local public health department used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Framework for Program Evaluation and a logic model to enhance its syndromic surveillance program.

Zoonoses account for over 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans. In recent years, global public health security has been threatened by zoonotic disease emergence as exemplified by outbreaks of H5N1 and H1N1 influenza, SARS, and most recently Ebola. The occurrence of a number of these zoonoses, and their spread to new areas, is related to globalization, environmental changes, and marginalization of populations. This phenomenon holds true for Latin American and the Caribbean countries (LAC), where 70% of the events public health emergencies reported to the WHO from 2007 to 2008 in the Americas were classified as zoonoses or communicable diseases common to humans and animals. Despite this record, there are no national or regional disease burden estimates in LAC for many zoonoses. To start filling this void, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) conducted a survey of LAC countries to collect information on priority emerging and endemic zoonoses, countries prioritization criteria and methodologies, and suggestions to strengthen countries capacities and regional approaches to zoonoses control.

Objective

To take the first step in identifying how American countries can strengthen their capacities to manage zoonoses risks by capturing information regarding their national zoonoses programs and priorities.