1887
Surveillance report Open Access
Like 0
This item has no PDF Download

Abstract

Early detection of disease outbreaks is essential for authorities to initiate and conduct an appropriate response. A need for an outbreak detection that monitored data predating laboratory confirmations was identified, which prompted the establishment of a novel symptom surveillance system. The surveillance system monitors approximately 80% of the Danish population by applying an outbreak detection algorithm to ambulance dispatch data. The system also monitors both regional and national activity and has a built-in, switch-on capacity for implementing symptom surveillance reporting in case of an alert. In an evaluation with outbreak scenarios it was found that decreasing the outbreak detection sensitivity from a prediction limit of 95% to one of 99% moderately reduced the time to detection, but considerably diminished the number of false alerts. The system was able to detect an increased activity of influenza-like illness in December 2003 in a timely fashion. The system has now been implemented in the national disease surveillance programme.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/10.2807/esm.11.12.00669-en
2006-12-01
2024-12-14
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/esm.11.12.00669-en
Loading
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/eurosurveillance/11/12/art00669-en.htm?itemId=/content/10.2807/esm.11.12.00669-en&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah
Submit comment
Close
Comment moderation successfully completed
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error