Emerging and re-emerging infections

2021 ◽  
pp. 269-286
Author(s):  
David L. Heymann ◽  
Vernon J.M. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Species Barrier ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Infrastructure Failure

Emerging infections are newly identified infections in humans—and are most often zoonotic—caused by infectious organisms that breach the species barrier between animals and humans. Re-emerging infections are known organisms that infect humans, but are identified after a period of absence from human populations. Re-emerging infections also often result from breaches in the species barrier. In addition to direct health outcomes of sickness and death, they also affect the economy, and may spread globally. This chapter discusses factors that influence the emergence of infectious diseases including weak public health infrastructure; failure of safety procedures and regulations; population shifts including rapid population increases and uncontrolled urbanization; anthropogenic activities and climate change; civil disturbance, human displacement, and natural disasters; human behaviours; and deliberate use to cause fear and harm. To address these threats, national public health systems must be strengthened to detect and respond to infectious diseases when and where they emerge, or re-emerge; and a safety net of global networks is required if and when the countries in which they emerge or re-emerge are unable to stop their international spread.

scholarly journals A Quarter Century of Emerging Infectious Diseases – Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
James W. Le Duc ◽  
Teresa E. Sorvillo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Travel ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Public Health Programs ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Societal Changes

<p>A quarter century ago the landmark report from the U. S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine entitled <em>“</em><em>Emerging Infections, Microbial Threats to Health in the United States” </em>was released. This classic study captured the societal changes then underway in our rapidly growing world: The growth of the world’s population and changing human behavior; the advances and globalization of technology and industry; the changes in economic development and land use; the dramatic increase in speed and frequency of international travel and commerce; the adaptation of microbes and the appearance of never before seen pathogens; and the breakdown of traditional public health measures. This societal evolution has only increased and the growing frequency of outbreaks foretold in the report has come to pass. Each new disaster has precipitated changes and adaptations in our global response to infectious diseases designed to reduce risks and avoid future outbreaks. We discuss these past events and how each led to change in an effort to mitigate future threats. We also look to the future to consider what challenges might lay ahead.</p><p><strong>Conclusion. </strong>Major outbreaks over the past quarter century validated the concept of emerging infectious diseases and led to improvements in global policies and national public health programs; however, there will likely always be new diseases and the threat of reemergence of diseases once thought controlled leading to a constant need for vigilance in public health preparedness.</p>

scholarly journals Patterns of smallpox mortality in London, England, over three centuries

PLoS Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. e3000506
Author(s):  
Olga Krylova ◽  
David J. D. Earn
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Spectral Analysis ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Control

Smallpox is unique among infectious diseases in the degree to which it devastated human populations, its long history of control interventions, and the fact that it has been successfully eradicated. Mortality from smallpox in London, England was carefully documented, weekly, for nearly 300 years, providing a rare and valuable source for the study of ecology and evolution of infectious disease. We describe and analyze smallpox mortality in London from 1664 to 1930. We digitized the weekly records published in the London Bills of Mortality (LBoM) and the Registrar General’s Weekly Returns (RGWRs). We annotated the resulting time series with a sequence of historical events that might have influenced smallpox dynamics in London. We present a spectral analysis that reveals how periodicities in reported smallpox mortality changed over decades and centuries; many of these changes in epidemic patterns are correlated with changes in control interventions and public health policies. We also examine how the seasonality of reported smallpox mortality changed from the 17th to 20th centuries in London.

Using an MSRD neural network model on hospital data to provide infectious-disease early warnings (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
MengYing Wang ◽  
Cuixia Lee ◽  
Cheng Yang ◽  
Yingyun Yang
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Neural Network ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Neural Network Model ◽  
Prediction Accuracy ◽  
Hospital Data ◽  
Seir Model ◽  
Network Methods ◽  
National Public Health

BACKGROUND This study focuses on analyzing real data from a hospital to provide timely warnings of known infectious diseases with a view to actively preventing epidemics. OBJECTIVE The aim is to design MSRD model to predict the epidemic trend of infectious diseases based on real hospital data. METHODS Based on the daily reported data of infectious diseases between 2012–2020 from a large Chinese hospital, we selected seven common infectious diseases and constructed a Multi Self-regression Deep (MSRD) neural network model. This model, which is based on a recurrent neural network, can effectively model the epidemic trend of infectious diseases while considering the current influential factors and characteristics of historical development when calculating time-series data. The mean absolute error (MAE) and the root mean square error (RMSE) are used to evaluate the model’s fit and prediction accuracy. RESULTS We compared the MSRD model proposed in this study with the infectious disease SEIR-model using the national public health dataset on COVID-19 and another in-hospital infectious disease, namely, Hand-Foot-and-Mouth disease (HFMD). In an experiment with the national public health dataset, the MSRD proposed in this study demonstrated better performance than the SEIR model, which is because of the SEIR model being limited by factors such as the latent population. The SEIR model is hard to apply to real-world hospital scenarios. Our MSRD model is compared with other neural network methods. The dataset is from real hospital medical records for January 2012–December 2020. The MAE of the MSRD neural network for HFMD and influenza was as low as 0.6928 and 1.3782, respectively. In addition, our MSRD model was compared against other neural network methods such as SVM, Lasso, and Bayes; the MAE and RMSE were both better than those of other neural networks. CONCLUSIONS Our MSRD neural network has high prediction accuracy and can predict the development trend of infectious diseases on a daily basis. The MSRD model can act as a hospital infectious-disease early-warning system.

scholarly journals Active surveillance of acute paediatric hospitalisations demonstrates the impact of vaccination programmes and informs vaccine policy in Canada and Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina A Top ◽  
Kristine Macartney ◽  
Julie A Bettinger ◽  
Ben Tan ◽  
Christopher C Blyth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Active Surveillance ◽  
Influenza A ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Public Health Response ◽  
Influenza A H1n1 ◽  
The Impact

Sentinel surveillance of acute hospitalisations in response to infectious disease emergencies such as the 2009 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic is well described, but recognition of its potential to supplement routine public health surveillance and provide scalability for emergency responses has been limited. We summarise the achievements of two national paediatric hospital surveillance networks relevant to vaccine programmes and emerging infectious diseases in Canada (Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program Active; IMPACT from 1991) and Australia (Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance; PAEDS from 2007) and discuss opportunities and challenges in applying their model to other contexts. Both networks were established to enhance capacity to measure vaccine preventable disease burden, vaccine programme impact, and safety, with their scope occasionally being increased with emerging infectious diseases’ surveillance. Their active surveillance has increased data accuracy and utility for syndromic conditions (e.g. encephalitis), pathogen-specific diseases (e.g. pertussis, rotavirus, influenza), and adverse events following immunisation (e.g. febrile seizure), enabled correlation of biological specimens with clinical context and supported responses to emerging infections (e.g. pandemic influenza, parechovirus, COVID-19). The demonstrated long-term value of continuous, rather than incident-related, operation of these networks in strengthening routine surveillance, bridging research gaps, and providing scalable public health response, supports their applicability to other countries.

Role of the Medical Examiner in Zika Virus and Other Emerging Infections

2016 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veena D. Singh ◽  
Sarah L. Lathrop
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome ◽  
Medical Examiner ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Medical Examiners

Context.—Medical examiners and coroners have long been an integral component of public health, often being the first to recognize and describe emerging infectious diseases. Given their experience and access, medical examiners and coroners will provide valuable contributions to better understanding Zika virus infection and its sequelae. Objective.—To review past examples of medical examiner/coroner involvement in recognition of emerging infectious diseases and describe how medical examiners and coroners will be critical in understanding the pathophysiology of Zika infections. Design.—Review of the existing literature on the role of medical examiners and coroners in the identification of emergent infections and the available literature on Zika virus. Results.—Medical examiners and coroners have played a crucial role in identifying numerous emerging infectious diseases such as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome and West Nile virus, and have the expertise and experience to aid in elucidating the pathophysiologic effects of Zika virus and tracking its distribution and risk factors. Conclusions.—Medical examiners and coroners will be a significant factor in the unified public health approach needed to mitigate the effects of Zika virus and other, heretofore unrecognized, infectious diseases.

scholarly journals Prioritisation for future surveillance, prevention and control of 98 communicable diseases in Belgium: a 2018 multi-criteria decision analysis study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofieke Klamer ◽  
◽  
Nina Van Goethem ◽  
Daniel Thomas ◽  
Els Duysburgh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Public Health Action ◽  
Data Gaps ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Health Action ◽  
Weighted Score ◽  
And Control

Abstract Background National public health agencies are required to prioritise infectious diseases for prevention and control. We applied the prioritisation method recommended by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to rank infectious diseases, according to their relative importance for surveillance and public health, to inform future public health action in Belgium. Methods We applied the multi-criteria-decision-analysis approach. A working group of epidemiologists and statisticians from Belgium (n = 6) designed a balanced set of prioritisation criteria. A panel of Belgian experts (n = 80) allocated in an online survey each criteria a weight, according to perceived relative importance. Next, experts (n = 37) scored each disease against each criteria in an online survey, guided by disease-specific factsheets referring the period 2010–2016 in Belgium. The weighted sum of the criteria’s scores composed the final weighted score per disease, on which the ranking was based. Sensitivity analyses quantified the impact of eight alternative analysis scenarios on the top-20 ranked diseases. We identified criteria and diseases associated with data-gaps as those with the highest number of blank answers in the scoring survey. Principle components of the final weighted score were identified. Results Working groups selected 98 diseases and 18 criteria, structured in five criteria groups. The diseases ranked highest were (in order) pertussis, human immunodeficiency virus infection, hepatitis C and hepatitis B. Among the five criteria groups, overall the highest weights were assigned to ‘impact on the patient’, followed by ‘impact on public health’, while different perceptions were identified between clinicians, microbiologists and epidemiologists. Among the 18 individual criteria, ‘spreading potential’ and ‘events requiring public health action’ were assigned the highest weights. Principle components clustered with thematic disease groups. Notable data gaps were found among hospital-related diseases. Conclusions We ranked infectious diseases using a standardised reproducible approach. The diseases ranked highest are included in current public health programs, but additional reflection for example about needs among risk groups is recommended. Cross-reference of the obtained ranking with current programs is needed to verify whether resources and activities map priority areas. We recommend to implement this method in a recurrent evaluation cycle of national public health priorities.

scholarly journals Improvement of a national public health surveillance system through use of a quality circle

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 7-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Krause ◽  
J Benzler ◽  
G Reiprich ◽  
R Görgen
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Surveillance System ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Quality Circle ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Public Health Surveillance System

Surveillance systems for infectious diseases build the basis for effective public health measures in the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Assessing and improving the quality of such national surveillance systems is a challenge, as many different administrations and professions contribute to a complex system in which sensitive information must be exchanged in a reliable and timely fashion. We conducted a multidisciplinary quality circle on the national public health surveillance system in Germany which included clinicians, laboratory physicians, and staff from local and state health departments as well as from the Robert Koch-Institut. The recommendations resulting from the quality circle included proposals to change the federal law for the control of infectious diseases as well as practical activities such as the change of notification forms and the mailing of faxed information letters to clinicians. A number of recommendations have since been implemented, and some have resulted in measurable improvements. This demonstrates that the applied method of quality circle is a useful tool to improve the quality of national public health surveillance systems.

Research Activities and Responding to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda): Tohoku-RITM Collaborating Research Center in the Philippines

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 823-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariko Saito ◽  
◽  
Mayuko Saito ◽  
Tadatsugu Imamura ◽  
Taro Kamigaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Major Public Health Problem ◽  
Emerging Infections ◽  
Public Health Perspective ◽  
Research Activities

In the six years since the Tohoku-RITM Collaborating Research Center was established, the center has been working on major infectious diseases in the Philippines and conducting molecular and epidemiological studies from a public health perspective. Its target diseases include pneumonia, diarrhea, and rabies, which are a major public health problem in the Philippines. Some studies have also been conducted on emerging and re-emerging infections significantly impacting both on the Philippines and on other countries. In November 2013, typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) hit the Visayas, where one of our research areas is located. The center responded immediately and helped assess and diagnose infectious diseases, based on our experience of Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.

scholarly journals Institute of medicine publishes new report on microbial threats to health

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Health System ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Institute Of Medicine ◽  
Emerging Infections

“Microbial Threats to health: emergence, detection, and response”, published this week by the Institute of Medicine focuses on the need for renewed commitment faced with the increased impact of infectious diseases in the United States since publication of the landmark report, “Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States” in 1992. The report’s authors, the Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st century, recommend enhanced global capacity for response to infectious diseases and stresses the importance of a robust public health system in responding to any disease outbreak.

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