Evaluation of the Novel Respiratory Virus Surveillance Program: Pediatric Early Warning Sentinel Surveillance (PEWSS)

Despite many recent efforts to predict and control emerging infectious disease threats to humans, we failed to anticipate the zoonotic viruses which led to pandemics in 2009 and 2020. The morbidity, mortality, and economic costs of these pandemics have been staggering. We desperately need a more targeted, cost-efficient, and sustainable strategy to detect and mitigate future zoonotic respiratory virus threats. Evidence suggests that the transition from an animal virus to a human pathogen is incremental and requires a considerable number of spillover events and considerable time before a pandemic variant emerges. This evolutionary view argues for the refocusing of public health resources on novel respiratory virus surveillance at human–animal interfaces in geographical hotspots for emerging infectious diseases. Where human–animal interface surveillance is not possible, a secondary high-yield, cost-efficient strategy is to conduct novel respiratory virus surveillance among pneumonia patients in these same hotspots. When novel pathogens are discovered, they must be quickly assessed for their human risk and, if indicated, mitigation strategies initiated. In this review, we discuss the most common respiratory virus threats, current efforts at early emerging pathogen detection, and propose and defend new molecular pathogen discovery strategies with the goal of preempting future pandemics.

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Early-warning health and process indicators for sentinel surveillance in Madagascar 2007-2011

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics ◽

10.5210/ojphi.v6i3.5400 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Soatiana Rajatonirina ◽

Fanjasoa Rakatomanana ◽

Laurence Randrianasolo ◽

Norosoa Harline Razanajatovo ◽

Soa Fy Andriamandimby ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Sentinel Surveillance ◽

Warning Sign ◽

Surveillance Network ◽

Poor Countries ◽

Process Indicators ◽

Spatiotemporal Trends ◽

Mobile Telephones ◽

Early Warning Sign ◽

Primary Health Centres

Background: Epidemics pose major threats in resource-poor countries, and surveillance tools for their early detection and response are often inadequate. In 2007, a sentinel surveillance system was established in Madagascar, with the aim of rapidly identifying potential epidemics of febrile or diarrhoeal syndromes and issuing alerts. We present the health and process indicators for the five years during which this system was constructed, showing the spatiotemporal trends, early-warning sign detection capability and process evaluation through timely analyses of high-quality data.Methods: The Malagasy sentinel surveillance network is currently based on data for fever and diarrhoeal syndromes collected from 34 primary health centres and reported daily via the transmission of short messages from mobile telephones. Data are analysed daily at the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar to make it possible to issue alerts more rapidly, and integrated process indicators (timeliness, data quality) are used to monitor the system.Results: From 2007 to 2011, 917,798 visits were reported. Febrile syndromes accounted for about 11% of visits annually, but the trends observed differed between years and sentinel sites. From 2007 to 2011, 21 epidemic alerts were confirmed. However, delays in data transmission were observed (88% transmitted within 24 hours in 2008; 67% in 2011) and the percentage of forms transmitted each week for validity control decreased from 99.9% in 2007 to 63.5% in 2011.Conclusion: A sentinel surveillance scheme should take into account both epidemiological and process indicators. It must also be governed by the main purpose of the surveillance and by local factors, such as the motivation of healthcare workers and telecommunication infrastructure. Permanent evaluation indicators are required for regular improvement of the system.

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Application of Early Warning Nursing System During COVID-19 Epidemic in Children’s Hospital

Nano LIFE ◽

10.1142/s1793984421400043 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 2140004

Author(s):

Wenying Yao ◽

Jinxia Yang ◽

Xin Wang ◽

Min Shen

Keyword(s):

Early Warning ◽

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Popular Science ◽

The Novel ◽

Children's Hospital ◽

Hospital Nursing ◽

Children’S Hospital ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

And Control

Aim: To develop a nursing early warning system in children’s hospital during the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia, and to accomplish the construction and application of this system, so as to provide decision-support of the prevention and control for COVID-19 in children’s medical institutions. Method: Children’s hospital nursing early warning system was divided into three modules: hospital nursing early warning platform includes internal and external early warning platform, nursing staff early warning program includes protection, human resources early warning plan and patient early warning program includes outpatient, emergency and ward early warning plan. The data of epidemic training, assessment, prevention and control screening from January to June 2020 were collected from the nursing early warning system to evaluate the application effect of the system. Results: A total of 18 procedures and specifications were formulated, nine hospital-level trainings and about 1000 department-level trainings were organized, two hospital-level assessments (pass rate 95.6% and 98.2%), and 78 nurses were reserved, and 10 popular science articles, five popular science videos were published during the application of the nursing early warning system. A total of 583,435 children and 139,308 caregivers were screened in outpatient, emergency and wards during pre-checks, 2385 suspected cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia were confirmed (0.41%) after the screening and 1 case (0.0002%) was finally confirmed. Conclusion: The nursing early warning system of children’s hospital can prevent and control the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic from each module, ensure early warning and triage of suspected infected patients, reduce the risk of cross-infection in hospital and improve the safety of the children’s hospital medical environment.

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Sentinel surveillance of child maltreatment cases presenting to Canadian emergency departments

BMC Pediatrics ◽

10.1186/s12887-019-1788-9 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Aimée Campeau ◽

Lil Tonmyr ◽

Erik Gulbransen ◽

Martine Hébert ◽

Steven McFaull ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Content Analysis ◽

Sexual Assault ◽

Child Maltreatment ◽

Physical Abuse ◽

Health Care Professionals ◽

Emergency Departments ◽

Sentinel Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Program ◽

Additional Information ◽

Injury Event

Abstract Background The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting Prevention Program (CHIRPP) is a sentinel surveillance program that collects and analyzes data on injuries and poisonings of people presenting to emergency departments (EDs) at 11 pediatric and eight general hospitals (currently) across Canada. To date, CHIRPP is an understudied source of child maltreatment (CM) surveillance data. This study: (1) describes CM cases identified in the CHIRPP database between1997/98 to 2010/11; (2) assesses the level of CM case capture over the 14-year period and; (3) uses content analysis to identify additional information captured in text fields. Methods We reviewed cases of children under 16 whose injuries were reported as resulting from CM from 1997/98 to 2010/11. A time trend analysis of cases to assess capture was conducted and content analysis was applied to develop a codebook to assess information from text fields in CHIRPP. The frequency of types of CM and other variables identified from text fields were calculated. Finally, the frequency of types of CM were presented by age and gender. Results A total of 2200 CM cases were identified. There was a significant decrease in the capture of CM cases between 1999 and 2005. Physical abuse was the most prevalent type (57%), followed by sexual assault (31%), unspecified maltreatment (7%), injury as the result of exposure to family violence (3%) and neglect (2%). Text fields provided additional information including perpetrator characteristics, the use of drugs and/or alcohol during the injury event, information regarding the involvement of non-health care professionals, whether maltreatment occurred during a visitation period with a parent and, whether the child was removed from their home. Conclusions The findings from this initial study indicate that CHIRPP could be a complimentary source of CM data. As an injury surveillance system, physical abuse and sexual assault were better captured than other types of CM. Text field data provided unique information on a number of additional details surrounding the injury event, including risk factors.

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