Sentinel surveillance is monitoring of rate of occurrence of specific diseases and conditions through a voluntary network of doctors, laboratories and public health departments with a view to assess the stability or change in health levels of a population. [1] It also describes the study of disease rates in a specific cohort such as a geographic area or subgroup to estimate trends in a larger population. [1] In zoonotic diseases, sentinel surveillance may be in a host species. [2]
A sentinel surveillance system is used to obtain data about a particular disease that cannot be obtained through a passive system such as summarizing standard public health reports. Data collected in a well-designed sentinel system can be used to signal trends, identify outbreaks and monitor disease burden, providing a rapid, economical alternative to other surveillance methods. [3]
Sentinel systems involve a network of reporting sites, typically doctors, laboratories and public health departments. Surveillance sites must offer: [3]
Passive surveillance systems receive data from "all" (or as many as possible) health workers/facilities and is the most common method of tracking communicable diseases. [4] Passive surveillance does not require health authorities to stimulate reporting by reminding health care workers. Workers may receive the surveillance training in how to complete surveillance forms. Passive surveillance is often incomplete because of the limited reporting incentives. [4]
Sentinel systems collect data on Haemophilus influenzae type b, meningococcus and pneumococcus. [3]
Because sentinel surveillance is conducted only at selected locations, it is not as appropriate for use on rare diseases or outbreaks distant from sentinel sites. [3]
The state of Hawaii conducts a sentinel surveillance program for COVID-19. From March 1-April 11, 2020, Hawaii's system detected 23 cases of COVID-19 among 1,084 specimens tested (2.1%). Samples were selected to match the state's geographic and age distribution. [5] In Santa Clara, California, researchers analyzed sentinel surveillance data from March 5–14, 2020. [6] From this sample, 19 out of 226 participants (8%) had COVID-19. [6]
The UK statutory notification system for infectious diseases is a system whereby doctors are required to notify a "proper officer" of the local authority if they are presented with a case of a serious infectious disease such as diphtheria or measles. The proper officer then sends a report to the Centre for Infections of the Health Protection Agency (HPA) in Colindale, north London.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is an agency of the Government of Canada that is responsible for public health, emergency preparedness and response, and infectious and chronic disease control and prevention.
Public health surveillance is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice." Public health surveillance may be used to track emerging health-related issues at an early stage and find active solutions in a timely manner. Surveillance systems are generally called upon to provide information regarding when and where health problems are occurring and who is affected.
Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.
The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is a membership organization in the United States representing the laboratories that protect the health and safety of the public. APHL serves as a liaison between public health laboratories and federal and international agencies. Membership consists of local, state, county, and territorial public health laboratories; public health environmental, agricultural and veterinary laboratories; and corporations and individuals with an interest in public health and laboratory science. APHL is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization with a history of over fifty years.
Surveillance for communicable diseases is the main public health surveillance activity in China. Currently, the disease surveillance system in China has three major components:
BioSense is a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that tracks health problems as they evolve and provides public health officials with the data, information and tools they need to understand developing health events. The system uses reports from local hospitals to conduct syndromic surveillance and identify trends in disease. The system began development in 2003. It's intended purpose was as an integrated nationwide health surveillance system to catch disease outbreaks and bioterrorism events such as the anthrax scare were key motivations for its development. It has faced criticism from congress and local health authorities over its cost and utility. Moreover, early versions of the system lacked uptake in part due to reluctance of hospital leaders to provide information directly to the government. Regardless, these systems have proved useful in monitoring the health effects of natural disasters, widespread outbreaks and monitoring epidemiological data on a national scale. More recently the system has also been used to monitor the effects of lifestyle such as vaping induced acute lung injuries.
Infoveillance is a type of syndromic surveillance that specifically utilizes information found online. The term, along with the term infodemiology, was coined by Gunther Eysenbach to describe research that uses online information to gather information about human behavior.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is the national public health institute for Nigeria. It is a federal government agency under the Federal Ministry of Health (Nigeria), with its headquarters in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory.
The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) is a nationwide disease surveillance system in India incorporating both the state and central governments aimed at early detection and long term monitoring of diseases for enabling efficient policy decisions. It was started in 2004 with the assistance of the World Bank. A central surveillance unit has been set up at the National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi. All states, union territories, and district headquarters of India have established surveillance units. Weekly data is submitted from over 90% of the 741 districts in the country. With the aim of improving digital surveillance capabilities, the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) was launched in a number of states in November 2019.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) is part of Ireland's Health Service Executive.
COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that cases COVID-19 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the virus or antibodies produced in response to infection. Molecular tests for viral presence through its molecular components are used to diagnose individual cases and to allow public health authorities to trace and contain outbreaks. Antibody tests instead show whether someone once had the disease. They are less useful for diagnosing current infections because antibodies may not develop for weeks after infection. It is used to assess disease prevalence, which aids the estimation of the infection fatality rate.
Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.
COVID-19 surveillance involves monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease in order to establish the patterns of disease progression. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends active surveillance, with focus of case finding, testing and contact tracing in all transmission scenarios. COVID-19 surveillance is expected to monitor epidemiological trends, rapidly detect new cases, and based on this information, provide epidemiological information to conduct risk assessment and guide disease preparedness.
Allison Joan McGeer is a Canadian infectious disease specialist in the Sinai Health System, and a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She also appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Senior Clinician Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and is a partner of the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. McGeer has led investigations into the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Toronto and worked alongside Donald Low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McGeer has studied how SARS-CoV-2 survives in the air and has served on several provincial committees advising aspects of the Government of Ontario's pandemic response.
This article documents the chronology and epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The first human cases of COVID-19 known to have been identified were in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, which marked the beginning of the 2019–2020 COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted healthcare workers physically and psychologically. Healthcare workers are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection than the general population due to frequent contact with infected individuals. Healthcare workers have been required to work under stressful conditions without proper protective equipment, and make difficult decisions involving ethical implications. Health and social systems across the globe are struggling to cope. The situation is especially challenging in humanitarian, fragile and low-income country contexts, where health and social systems are already weak. Services to provide sexual and reproductive health care risk being sidelined, which will lead to higher maternal mortality and morbidity.
Wastewater surveillance is the process of monitoring wastewater for contaminants. Amongst other uses, it can be used for biosurveillance, to detect the presence of pathogens in local populations, and to detect the presence of psychoactive drugs.
Wastewater-based epidemiology analyzes wastewater to determine the consumption of, or exposure to, chemicals or pathogens in a population. This is achieved by measuring chemical or biomarkers in wastewater generated by the people contributing to a sewage treatment plant catchment. Wastewater-based epidemiology has been used to estimate illicit drug use in communities or populations, but can be used to measure the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, various pharmaceuticals and other compounds. Wastewater-based epidemiology has also been adapted to measure the load of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 in a community. It differs from traditional drug testing, urine or stool testing in that results are population-level rather than individual level. Wastewater-based epidemiology is an interdisciplinary endeavour that draws on input from specialists such as wastewater treatment plant operators, analytical chemists and epidemiologists.
The 2022 Tucumán legionellosis outbreak refers to an epidemic that originated in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. It was first identified on Saturday, 20 August 2022, when 7 people arrived at the Tucumán Hospital with fever, malaise, shortness of breath, and headache.