Surveillance Systems

In Mozambique about 10% of deaths in children are due to ARI. Although influenza (Flu) virus may be implicated in these infections, little is known about the circulation of this virus in the country. Thus, Mozambique implemented the influenza surveillance based on sentinel sites, facing a great challenge due to several factors. One of them is the proper influenza case definition along with others challenges since its international standardization is difficult. In order to get insights to the epidemiology of flu we reviewed the first year of surveillance implementation monitoring data to improve procedures.

Objective

Analyse challenges of the first year of surveillance implementation in Mozambique, according to samples income, hospital staff performance and available tools.

Compare two influenza surveillance approaches

Injuries from dog bites affect approximately 4.7 million Americans per year, causing significant societal impact. Currently dog bites are the third leading cause of homeowner insurance claims, and are estimated to cost the insurance industry $489 million annually. When insurance costs are coupled with hospitalizations and lost productivity, dog bites are estimated to cost the United States $2 billion/year. However, the true impact of dog bite injuries remains unknown since discrepancies exist in the number of dog bite injuries being found by various mechanisms, and many bites may actually go unreported. In order to evaluate the true impact of dog bite injuries, the limitations of current surveillance methods must first be delineated and understood.

Objective

To give an overview of the challenges facing dog bite injury surveillance as well as identify some potential solutions for improving surveillance mechanisms.

Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) disproportionately bear the high burden of injuries, with 90% of all deaths due to injury occurring in these countries. In India, data on pre-hospital care of the injured is either absent or incomplete. The Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Program is a five-year (2010- 2015) project implemented by a consortium of partners to improve road safety in 10 LMICs. The risk factors being addressed in India are reduction of drink driving and increasing helmet use. Up to 16 months of data from two large hospitals in Hyderabad (population 8 million) were retrospectively reviewed to examine the burden of road traffic injuries. Unfortunately, key information on the following was incomplete: alcohol use; location and activity of patient at the time of injury; nature of collision; vehicle in which patient was traveling; striking vehicle and type of road user. Information on the presence of safety equipment like helmet and seatbelt, and occurrence of prehospital care was uniformly absent. To overcome the information gap, round-the-clock injury surveillance was established in July 2013 in Hyderabad and in June 2014 in Visakhapatnam.

Objective

To describe the challenges and lessons learned in establishing road traffic injury surveillance in two large government teaching hospitals in two States of South India, with solutions that eventually helped streamline the process.

Livestock diseases in most developing countries are often widely distributed. The wide distribution of diseases often renders whole countries ineligible to participate in international trade of meat and meat products. These trade restrictions serve as a continuous primary source of revenue loss. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) now promotes establishment of disease free zones to lessen the impact of trade restrictions. These “islands” of disease freedom not only serve as a first step in total disease freedom, but for many countries they also serve as a beacon of hope to ever returning to international trade. The selection of a region within a country to be designated as a disease free zone is likely to be based more on the fact that a particular region is yet to experience cases of a given disease than it is on the nation’s Veterinary department ability to keep the region disease free. As such, geographical regions that seem to have inherent protection against disease incursions usually due to geospatial features such as mountains, rivers, remoteness etc. serve as the best candidates for creation of disease free zones. Because the process of disease free zone creation is slow, it is important to ensure that disease surveillance is these regions is enhanced so that disease control authorities may serve as agile responders to disease incursions. This current presentation outlines the creation of a Provincial Epidemiological and Information Centre (PEIC) in Zambia’s Luapula province. This is only the second epidemiosurveillance centre in the country. Luapula province in the northern part of Zambia being one of only 3 provinces out of a total of 10 provinces that are free of theilleriosis in Zambia 2 has the potential of being Zambia’s largest disease free zone. The challenges as well as lessons learnt from setting up this epidemiosurveillance centre are presented.

Objective

This presentation outlines the steps and challenges involved in setting up a regional epidemio-surveillance centre in a resource constrained setting. While this Zambian experience is unique, the challenges encountered are typical of most developing countries and therefore the lessons learned can be applied to much of the developing world.

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.

Canada experienced 92 waterborne diseases outbreaks between 1975 and 2001. In addition, at any one time about 1500 communities in Canada are unable to use their drinking water. The source of exposure in disease outbreaks is often not known, so the true disease burden attributable to water related exposure may be much higher. Researchers have investigated risk factors for waterborne disease. However, providing acces to surveiallance tools of use by frontline staff in the field as well as by surveillance professionals was key to making this type of system successful.

Objective

The objectives of this environmental health surveillance system were to provide a robust system for monitoring of water quality trends, and information to be used for mitigation of potential health problems, resource planning, risk analyses and decision making