A new surveillance system for undiagnosed serious infectious illness for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

E Heinsbroek; B Said; H Kirkbride; Collective On behalf of the HPA USII Steering Group

doi:10.2807/ese.17.31.20237-en

Surveillance and outbreak reports Open Access

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A new surveillance system for undiagnosed serious infectious illness for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

E Heinsbroek^1,2, B Said¹, H Kirkbride¹, Collective On behalf of the HPA USII Steering Group³
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Affiliations: ¹ Health Protection Agency, Colindale, London, United Kingdom ² European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden ³ Members of the group are listed at the end of the article

Correspondence:
H Kirkbride
usii hpa.org.uk
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Citation style for this article: Heinsbroek E, Said B, Kirkbride H, On behalf of the HPA USII Steering Group Collective. A new surveillance system for undiagnosed serious infectious illness for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Euro Surveill. 2012;17(31):pii=20237. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.17.31.20237-en Received: 04 Jul 2012; Accepted:

Abstract

A new surveillance system was developed to detect possible new or emerging infections presenting as undiagnosed serious infectious illness (USII) for use during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Designated clinicians in sentinel adult and paediatric intensive care units (ICU/PICUs) reported USII using an online reporting tool or provided a weekly nil notification. Reported cases were investigated for epidemiological links. A pilot study was undertaken for six months between January and July 2011 to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the system. In this six-month period, 5 adults and 13 children were reported by six participating units (3 ICUs, 3 PICUs). Of these 18 patients, 12 were reported within four days after admission to an ICU/PICU. Nine patients were subsequently diagnosed and were thus excluded from the surveillance. Therefore, only nine cases of USII were reported. No clustering was identified. On the basis of the pilot study, we conclude that the system is able to detect cases of USII and is feasible and acceptable to users. USII surveillance has been extended to a total of 19 sentinel units in London and the south-east of England during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.