scholarly journals Australian National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory annual report, 2017

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A Roberts ◽  
Linda K Hobday ◽  
Aishah Ibrahim ◽  
Bruce R Thorley

Australia monitors its polio-free status by conducting surveillance for cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in children less than 15 years of age, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Cases of AFP in children are notified to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance System and faecal specimens are referred for virological investigation to the National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory. In 2017, no cases of poliomyelitis were reported from clinical surveillance and Australia reported 1.33 non-polio AFP cases per 100,000 children, meeting the WHO performance criterion for a sensitive surveillance system. Three non-polio enteroviruses, coxsackievirus B1, echovirus 11 and enterovirus A71, were identified from clinical specimens collected from AFP cases. Australia established enterovirus and environmental surveillance systems to complement the clinical system focussed on children and an ambiguous vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was isolated from sewage in Melbourne. In 2017, 22 cases of wild polio were reported with three countries remaining endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda K Hobday ◽  
Aishah Ibrahim ◽  
Matthew E Kaye ◽  
Leesa Bruggink ◽  
Presa Chanthalavanh ◽  
...  

Australia monitors its polio-free status by conducting surveillance for cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in children less than 15 years of age, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Cases of AFP in children are notified to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance System and faecal specimens are referred for virological investigation to the National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory. In 2019, no cases of poliomyelitis were reported from clinical surveillance and Australia reported 1.34 non-polio AFP cases per 100,000 children, meeting the World Health Organization’s performance criterion for a sensitive surveillance system. The non-polio enteroviruses coxsackievirus A2, coxsackievirus A16, echovirus 9, and enterovirus A71 were identified from clinical specimens collected from AFP cases. Australia also performs enterovirus and environmental surveillance to complement the clinical system focussed on children. In 2019, 175 cases of wild polio were reported, with three countries remaining endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew B Kaye ◽  
Arnau Garcia-Clapes ◽  
Linda K Hobday ◽  
Aishah Ibrahim ◽  
Presa Chanthalavanh ◽  
...  

Australia monitors its polio-free status by conducting surveillance for cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in children less than 15 years of age, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Cases of AFP in children are notified to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance System and faecal specimens are referred for virological investigation to the National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory. In 2020, no cases of poliomyelitis were reported from clinical surveillance; Australia reported 1.09 non-polio AFP cases per 100,000 children, thereby meeting the WHO’s performance criterion for a sensitive surveillance system. The non-polio enteroviruses coxsackievirus A10 and coxsackievirus A16 were identified from clinical specimens collected from AFP cases. Australia also performs enterovirus surveillance and environmental surveillance to complement the clinical system focussed on children. In 2020, there were 140 cases of wild poliovirus reported from the two remaining endemic countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another 28 countries reported cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus.


Author(s):  
Jason A Roberts ◽  
Linda K Hobday ◽  
Aishah Ibrahim ◽  
Bruce R Thorley

Australia monitors its polio-free status by conducting surveillance for cases of AFP in children less than 15 years of age, as recommended by the WHO. Cases of AFP in children are notified to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance System and faecal specimens are referred for virological investigation to the National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory. In 2018, no cases of poliomyelitis were reported from clinical surveillance and Australia reported 1.24 non-polio AFP cases per 100,000 children, meeting the WHO performance criterion for a sensitive surveillance system. Several non-polio enteroviruses, coxsackievirus A4, coxsackievirus B1, echovirus 9, echovirus 30, enterovirus D68 and enterovirus A71, were identified from clinical specimens collected from AFP cases. Australia also performs enterovirus and environmental surveillance to complement the clinical system focussed on children. In 2018, 33 cases of wild polio were reported with three countries remaining endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A Roberts ◽  
Linda K Hobday ◽  
Aishah Ibrahim ◽  
Bruce R Thorley

Australia monitors its polio-free status by conducting surveillance for cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in children less than 15 years of age, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Cases of AFP in children are notified to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance System and faecal specimens are referred for virological investigation to the National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory. In 2016, no cases of poliomyelitis were reported from clinical surveillance and Australia reported 1.38 non-polio AFP cases per 100,000 children, meeting the WHO performance criterion for a sensitive surveillance system. Several non-polio enteroviruses, coxsackievirus A6, enterovirus A71, enterovirus A74 and enterovirus D68, were identified from clinical specimens collected from AFP cases. The global withdrawal of Sabin poliovirus type 2 from oral polio vaccine occurred in April 2016. This event represents the start of the polio endgame with an increased focus on the laboratory containment of all remaining wild and vaccine strains of poliovirus type 2. The National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory was designated as a polio essential facility as part of this process. In 2016, 37 cases of wild polio were reported with three countries remaining endemic: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Nigeria was declared polio-free in 2015, after 12 months without detection of wild poliovirus, but was reinstated as an endemic country after the reporting of four cases in August 2016. This is a salient reminder of the need to maintain sensitive surveillance for poliovirus until global eradication is certified.


Author(s):  
Mozhgan Mahmoodi ◽  
Abbas Yazdanpanah ◽  
Abbas Ghavam ◽  
Khodadad Sheikhzadeh

Introduction: Viral hepatitis has been declared as one of the major health problems by World Health Organization. Hepatitis B surveillance system is one of the most important tools for managing the disease and achieving the targets of disease elimination. Despite its high efficiency, hepatitis B surveillance system has always been faced with many challenges. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the core functions of the hepatitis B surveillance system in southeastern region of Iran. Method: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 hepatitis B surveillance experts in five counties of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, southeast Iran. The data were analyzed using content analysis method, based on the structure of the disease surveillance system. Purposeful sampling method was carried out and continued until saturation of the themes was achieved. Results: The main studied themes were case finding, case reporting, case registration, case confirmation, data analysis, sending feedback, and implementing interventions. The results of this study showed that all of the core functions of the hepatitis B surveillance system were running in the studied counties, although they did not meet the relevant standards in some cases. Conclusion: It seemed that, despite the numerous efforts and activities, it was still far from reaching the targets of the program. Considering the goal of World Health Organization to eliminate hepatitis B by 2030, it is essential to address these challenges and make attempt to overcome them.


Author(s):  
Soran Amin Hamalaw ◽  
Ali Hattem Bayati ◽  
Muhammed Babakir-Mina

Background The quality of the surveillance system can be defined by attributes such as completeness, timeliness, usefulness, simplicity, flexibility, acceptability, and reliability. This study aims to assess these quality features of the communicable disease surveillance system (CDSS) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Methods This study was conducted using a retrospective review of records and documents, and the interviews with the surveillance staff (n = 82) of the Kurdistan governorates during 2018, 2019, and 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) guideline 2006 indicators were used for evaluation and monitoring the quality of the communicable disease surveillance system. The data analyzed and showed as frequencies and percentages using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 software. Results The reporting timeliness declined from 98% in 2019 to 69% in 2020. At the same time, there was an improvement in completeness of reporting from 83% in 2018 to 99% in 2020. The total scores of other surveillance quality attributes, simplicity, usefulness, flexibility, acceptability, and reliability, were 75%, 72%, 67%, 72%, and 69%, respectively. Conclusion Current findings demonstrate that the CDSS is still facing significant challenges in timeliness simplicity, usefulness, flexibility, acceptability, and reliability. Further studies to assess the system’s quality, particularly the system’s timeliness of outbreak response, sensitivity, and specificity, are recommended.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (42) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyukmin Lee ◽  
Eun-Jeong Yoon ◽  
Dokyun Kim ◽  
Seok Hoon Jeong ◽  
Jong Hee Shin ◽  
...  

Surveillance plays a pivotal role in overcoming antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacterial pathogens, and a variety of surveillance systems have been set up and employed in many countries. In 2015, the World Health Organization launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) as a part of the global action plan to enhance national and global surveillance and research. The aims of GLASS are to foster development of national surveillance systems and to enable collection, analysis and sharing of standardised, comparable and validated data on AMR between different countries. The South Korean AMR surveillance system, Kor-GLASS, is compatible with the GLASS platform and was established in 2016 and based on the principles of representativeness, specialisation, harmonisation and localisation. In this report, we summarise principles and processes in order to share our experiences with other countries planning to establish a national AMR surveillance system. The pilot operation of Kor-GLASS allowed us to understand the national burden of specific infectious diseases and the status of bacterial AMR. Issues pertaining to high costs and labour-intensive operation were raised during the pilot, and improvements are being made.


2020 ◽  
pp. 101053952096846
Author(s):  
Kaixuan Hu

The purposes of this article are to explore the challenges the Chinese health care system will be facing in the next decade. The recent outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) having infected more than 90 000 persons in China (Source: World Health Organization, WHO Coronavirus Disease Dashboard) again reveals the weaknesses of the fragmental health care system. Over the past 3 decades, increasing out-of-pocket spending on health care, increasing mortality rate of chronic disease, growing disparities between rural and urban populations, the defectiveness of disease surveillance system, and disease outbreak response system have been pressing Chinese authorities for action. As this country has experienced an unprecedented economic growth along with an unparalleled development of health care system in the past 3 decades, the challenges ahead are unavoidably numerous and complex.


2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (suppl) ◽  
pp. S147-S154 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Woodall

The Internet is changing the way global disease surveillance is conducted. Countries and international organizations are increasingly placing their outbreak reports on the Internet, which speeds up distribution and therefore prevention and control. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized the value of nongovernmental organizations and the media in reporting outbreaks, which it then attempts to verify through its country offices. However, WHO and other official sources are constrained in their reporting by the need for bureaucratic clearance. ProMED-mail <www.promedmail.org> has no such constraints, and posts outbreak reports 7 days a week. It is moderated by infectious disease specialists who add relevant comments. Thus, ProMED-mail complements official sources and provides early warning of outbreaks. Its network is more than 20,000 people in over 150 countries, who place their computers and time at the network's disposal and report on outbreaks of which they have knowledge. Regions and countries could benefit from adopting the ProMED-mail approach to complement their own disease surveillance systems.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica A. Fialkowski ◽  
Leigh M. Tyndall Snow ◽  
Kimerbly Signs ◽  
Mary Grace Stobierski

The histoplasmosis surveillance system was evaluated using the 2001Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Updated Guidelines for Evaluating Public Health Surveillance Systems. From 2004 to 2014, a total of 1,608 confirmed or probable cases were reported into MDSS, with a slight increasing trend in case numbers over time. Michigan’s histoplasmosis surveillance system is relatively simple, but the misclassification of cases is troublesome. Development of tools for LHDs to aid in classification of cases may improve the PPV and decrease case investigation time. Increasing the number of hospitals that report directly to MDSS would indicate more acceptability, and increase sensitivity.


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