Communicable Disease Control ; methods ; trends

The importance of vaccine on public health is related to the herd protection related to the levels of vaccine coverage, which directly influences the vaccinated individuals as well as the unvaccinated community. Reaching the level of herd protection by increasing vaccine coverage is the basic strategy to eradicate related infectious diseases. Again, herd protection has played an important role in public health practices. With the increasing interests in estimating the vaccine herd protection, we however, have seen only few relevant papers including observational population-based and cluster-randomized clinical trials reported in China. We hope to discuss the study designs for evaluating the vaccine herd protection in order to generate evidence-based related research in this field.
China/epidemiology* ; Communicable Disease Control ; Communicable Diseases/immunology* ; Humans ; Immunity, Herd/immunology* ; Research Design ; Vaccination/trends* ; Vaccines/immunology*

Bioterrorism ; classification ; psychology ; trends ; Communicable Diseases ; transmission ; Disease Transmission, Infectious ; prevention & control ; Humans

Communicable Disease Control ; methods ; trends ; Disease Eradication ; organization & administration ; Hepatitis, Viral, Human ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; Humans ; Public Health ; Singapore ; epidemiology

Adolescent ; Communicable Disease Control ; legislation & jurisprudence ; Female ; Humans ; Immunization Programs ; Male ; Mandatory Programs ; Papillomaviridae ; immunology ; Papillomavirus Vaccines ; therapeutic use ; Patient Compliance ; Risk ; United States ; Vaccination ; legislation & jurisprudence ; trends

INTRODUCTIONWe undertook a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the National Childhood Immunisation Programme (NCIP) over the past 26 years by reviewing the epidemiological trends of the diseases protected, the immunisation coverage and the changing herd immunity of the population during the period of 1982 to 2007.

MATERIALS AND METHODSThe epidemiological data of all cases of diphtheria, pertussis, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella and acute hepatitis B notified to the Communicable Diseases Division, Ministry of Health (MOH) from 1982 to 2007 were collated and analysed. Data on tuberculosis (TB) cases were obtained from the TB Control Unit, Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Cases of neonatal tetanus and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) among infants born in Singapore were identified from the Central Claims Processing System. The number of therapeutic abortions performed for rubella infections was retrieved from the national abortion registry. Coverage of the childhood immunisation programme was based on the immunisation data maintained by the National Immunisation Registry, Health Promotion Board. To assess the herd immunity of the population against the various vaccine-preventable diseases protected, the findings of several serological surveys conducted from 1982 to 2005 were reviewed.

RESULTSThe incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases covered under the NCIP had declined over the last 26 years with diphtheria, neonatal tetanus, poliomyelitis and congenital rubella virtually eliminated. The last case of childhood TB meningitis and the last case of acute hepatitis B in children below 15 years were reported in 2002 and 1996, respectively.

CONCLUSIONThe NCIP has been successfully implemented as evidenced by the disappearance of most childhood diseases, excellent immunisation coverage rate in infants, preschool and school children, and high level of herd immunity of the childhood population protected.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Communicable Disease Control ; statistics & numerical data ; trends ; Communicable Diseases ; epidemiology ; Disease Notification ; statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Immunity, Herd ; Immunization Programs ; statistics & numerical data ; Incidence ; Infant ; Population Surveillance ; Prevalence ; Singapore ; epidemiology

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/epidemiology* ; Bayes Theorem ; COVID-19/prevention & control* ; China/epidemiology* ; Communicable Disease Control/trends* ; Disease Notification/statistics & numerical data* ; Forecasting ; Humans ; Incidence ; Interrupted Time Series Analysis ; SARS-CoV-2

OBJECTIVETo analyze the trends of case detection and other indicators of leprosy in China during 1985-2002.

METHODSData reported by each province were collected by China National Leprosy Database in Nanjing P.R. China. All data about registered cases were put into computer for analysis.

RESULTSFrom 1985 to 2002, a total of 49,477 new leprosy cases had been detected. Among them, 69.5% were multibacillary cases and 25.4% had grade 2 disability. The child cases aged below 15 years accounted for 3.74% of total cases. Totally, 5824 cases and 303 cases relapsed after dapsone (DDS) mono-therapy and multidrug therapy (MDT), respectively. Case detection showed a marked reduction from 0.47/100,000 in 1985 to 0.18/100,000 in 1993 although there were several spurts due to operational factors. From 1994, case detection showed no significant decline. The grade 2 disability among new patients decreased from 31.4% in 1985 to 23.4% in 2002. The child case detection rate among new cases fluctuated between 2.70%-3.56% from 1999 to 2002. The incidence of relapse declined after the introduction of DDS mono-therapy. However, it increased after the introduction of MDT.

CONCLUSIONChina experiences in leprosy control show that it will take a long time with continuing present leprosy control activities to bring down the case detection and other indicators to a very low level even after reaching the elimination goal of leprosy.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Age Factors ; Child ; China ; epidemiology ; Communicable Disease Control ; trends ; Dapsone ; administration & dosage ; therapeutic use ; Disability Evaluation ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Humans ; Incidence ; Leprostatic Agents ; administration & dosage ; therapeutic use ; Leprosy ; drug therapy ; epidemiology ; prevention & control ; Recurrence