A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been exposed to a communicable disease, yet do not have a confirmed medical diagnosis. It is distinct from medical isolation, in which those confirmed to be infected with a communicable disease are isolated from the healthy population. Quarantine considerations are often one aspect of border control.
Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In about 15% of people, within a day of improving the fever comes back, abdominal pain occurs, and liver damage begins causing yellow skin. If this occurs, the risk of bleeding and kidney problems is increased.
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
The Control of Communicable Diseases Manual (CCDM) is one of the most widely recognized reference volumes on the topic of infectious diseases. It is useful for physicians, epidemiologists, global travelers, emergency volunteers and all who have dealt with or might have to deal with public health issues.
In demography and medical geography, epidemiological transition is a theory which "describes changing population patterns in terms of fertility, life expectancy, mortality, and leading causes of death." For example, a phase of development marked by a sudden increase in population growth rates brought by improved food security and innovations in public health and medicine, can be followed by a re-leveling of population growth due to subsequent declines in fertility rates. Such a transition can account for the replacement of infectious diseases by chronic diseases over time due to increased life span as a result of improved health care and disease prevention. This theory was originally posited by Abdel Omran in 1971.
David L. Heymann is an American infectious disease epidemiologist and public health expert, based in London.
Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases is among the largest publicly available emerging diseases and outbreak reporting systems in the world. The purpose of ProMED is to promote communication amongst the international infectious disease community, including scientists, physicians, veterinarians, epidemiologists, public health professionals, and others interested in infectious diseases on a global scale. Founded in 1994, ProMED has pioneered the concept of electronic, Internet-based emerging disease and outbreak detection reporting. In 1999, ProMED became a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. As of 2016, ProMED has more than 75,000 subscribers in over 185 countries. With an average of 13 posts per day, ProMED provides users with up-to-date information concerning infectious disease outbreaks on a global scale.
The International Health Regulations (IHR), first adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1969 and last revised in 2005, are a legally binding rules that only apply to the WHO that is an instrument that aims for international collaboration "to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks and that avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade". The IHR is the only international legal treaty with the responsibility of empowering the World Health Organization (WHO) to act as the main global surveillance system.
Field Epidemiology is the application of epidemiologic methods to unexpected health problems when a rapid on-site investigation is necessary for timely intervention. A more expansive definition is: The practice of Epidemiology in the field. Work is done in communities often as a public health service and as part of government or a closely allied institution. Field epidemiology is how epidemics and outbreaks are investigated, and is used to implement measures to protect and improve the health of the public. Field epidemiologists must deal with unexpected, sometimes urgent problems that demand immediate solution. Its methods are designed to answer specific epidemiologic questions in order to plan, implement, and/or evaluate public health interventions. These studies consider the needs of those who will use the results. The task of a field epidemiologist is not complete until the results of a study have been clearly communicated in a timely manner to those who need to know, and an intervention made to improve the health of the people.
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure.
The evolutionary origins of yellow fever most likely came from Africa. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the virus originated from East or Central Africa, with transmission between primates and humans, and spread from there to West Africa. The virus as well as the vector Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species, were probably brought to the western hemisphere and the Americas by slave trade ships from Africa after the first European exploration in 1492. However, some researchers have argued that yellow fever might have existed in the Americas during the pre-Columbian period as mosquitoes of the genus Haemagogus, which is indigenous to the Americas, have been known to carry the disease.
Sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance, synonym epidemiological reconnaissance is a literal name of a concept and routine of finding out disease potential on a territory of arrival of major contingent. Russian: санитарно-эпидемиологическая разведка, син. эпидемиологическая разведка. This is a kind of medical reconnaissance, process of information gathering on possible infectious diseases' origin-sources, the ways and factors of the infection transfer and determining all conditions that could have promoted the spread of infestation among army service personnel. In 1939 Academician E.N.Pavlovsky announced his "doctrine of nidality", so called by Soviet biologists. People can acquire zoonoses and insect-borne diseases when they occupy at certain times of the year natural habitat of a certain pathogen. The WHO Expert Committee on Zoonoses listed over 100 such diseases. About natural focality of the diseases is known elsewhere.
Diseases and epidemics of the 19th century included long-standing epidemic threats such as smallpox, typhus, yellow fever, and scarlet fever. In addition, cholera emerged as an epidemic threat and spread worldwide in six pandemics in the nineteenth century. The third plague pandemic emerged in China in the mid-nineteenth century and spread worldwide in the 1890s.
The Cocoliztli Epidemic or the Great Pestilence was an outbreak of a mysterious illness characterized by high fevers and bleeding which caused 5–15 million deaths in New Spain during the 16th century. The Aztec people called it cocoliztli, Nahuatl for pestilence. It ravaged the Mexican highlands in epidemic proportions, resulting in the demographic collapse of some Indigenous populations.
Chikwe Ihekweazu is a Nigerian epidemiologist, public health physician and World Health Organization’s Assistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems.
In 2000, typhoid fever caused an estimated 21.7 million illnesses and 217,000 deaths. It occurs most often in children and young adults between 5 and 19 years old. In 2013, it resulted in about 161,000 deaths – down from 181,000 in 1990. Infants, children, and adolescents in south-central and Southeast Asia experience the greatest burden of illness. Outbreaks of typhoid fever are also frequently reported from sub-Saharan Africa and countries in Southeast Asia. In the United States, about 400 cases occur each year, and 75% of these are acquired while traveling internationally.
Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.
The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) is a publication of the World Health Organization (WHO) that as of 2020 is in its 95th volume. It is published in English and French with the alternative title of the Relevé épidémiologique hebdomadaire. It aims to rapidly disseminate epidemiological information about outbreaks of diseases under the International Health Regulations and about communicable diseases of public health importance. This includes emerging or re-emerging diseases.
In epidemiology, sporadic is a term used to refer to a disease which occurs only infrequently, haphazardly, irregularly or occasionally from time to time in a few isolated places with no discernible temporal or spatial pattern, as opposed to a recognizable epidemic or endemic pattern. The cases are so few and separated so widely in time and place that there exists little or no connection within them. They also do not show a recognizable common source of infection.
