Question

Discuss how surveillance data can be used to identify and characterize public health problems and monitor control measures associated with salmonella. 150 words

Answer 1

Ans) Disease surveillance is an ongoing process that involves the systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of information regarding the occurrence of diseases in defined populations for public health action to reduce morbidity and mortality.

- Surveillance can be conducted in the community and in institutional settings, where it may form the basis for an infection-prevention program.

- For most infectious diseases, community-based surveillance is the domain of public health departments at the local or state level. All jurisdictions require licensed physicians to report the occurrence of selected diseases to the health department.

- Typically, such diseases include sexually transmitted infections, vaccine-preventable diseases, bloodborne pathogens, tuberculosis, certain invasive bacterial diseases, and enteric infections caused by Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli and Campylobacter.

- In addition to categorical reporting, most states require reporting of disease outbreaks, regardless of the cause, and have some provision to solicit reports of new and emerging diseases.

- (1) Surveillance information-based: Scientific early warning must be based on timely and accurate surveillance data. Information on the occurrence and influencing factors of infectious diseases can be collected via several effective and sensitive surveillance systems and channels and analyzed to reveal the occurrence and development of infectious diseases for timely detection of “abnormal increase” of the incidence, so as to warn relevant responsible departments, institutions, and population that may be affected by the diseases.

(2) Timeliness: It is essential for infectious disease early warning to be timely in its detection and warning during the early stages of outbreaks. During the course of the outbreak, the negative impact caused by infectious diseases rapidly increase over time. When people in the community are infected with the Ebola virus, cases will increase rapidly without timely detection or measures to control the epidemic (WHO, 2016). Early warning provides an opportunity to implement response measures early that may otherwise be missed. For a specific early warning system, timeliness is represented by the lag time between the onset of the outbreak and when the outbreak is actually detected by the early warning system. Therefore, enhancing timeliness means reducing the lag time, either by using different types of data, improving the collection of surveillance data, or by adopting optimized early warning algorithms.

(3) Information for action: The aim of early warning is to provide evidence-based guidance resulting in an informed and targeted response for the purpose of controlling the outbreaks, or at the very least, ensuring they are reduced to a minimum. Therefore, early warning and response are closely linked, hence the so-called “information for action.” The Early Warning and Response System, or EWARS is advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and concretely embodies this approach.

(4) Information inadequacy: In the early stages of infectious disease outbreaks, information is extremely limited and the allotted time to make response decisions is very short. Similarly, it is quite difficult to identify causes rapidly for the outbreaks as the lack of information on fluctuations in infectious disease incidence or small changes to pathogens and epidemiological factors, as well as evidence of dose-response relationships is initially sparse during the acute phase of any disease event. Despite the inadequacy of information and the uncertainty of the hazard in question, early warning should still be exercised in places where measures need to be taken.