Epidemiologic Methods ; Humans ; Population Surveillance ; Public Health

China ; Disease ; Humans ; Public Health Surveillance ; methods

Disease Outbreaks ; Humans ; Population Surveillance ; Public Health Informatics

Generally, laboratory testing for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is done for three reasons: for individual diagnosis and clinical management; to ensure the safety of blood or tissue products; and for public health surveillance. Many HIV-infected patients are unaware of their infections. The early diagnosis of infection is critical for medical and public health reasons. Its diagnosis is a two-step process that requires the sequential use of a highly sensitive screening test, followed by a highly specific confirmatory test. HIV-testing technology continues to evolve, with various tests currently available. This article reviews the current status of and recent advances in HIV testing.
Diagnosis ; Early Diagnosis ; HIV Infections* ; HIV* ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; Public Health ; Public Health Surveillance

PURPOSE: An injury surveillance information system (ISIS) collects, analyzes, and distributes data on injuries to promote health care delivery. The present study aimed to review the data elements and functional requirements of this system. METHOD: This study was conducted in 2019. Studies related to injury surveillance system were searched from January 2000 to September 2019 via the databases of PubMed, Web of Knowledge, ScienceDirect, and Scopus. Articles related to the epidemiology of injury, population survey, and letters to the editor were excluded, while the review and research articles related to ISISs were included in the study. Initially 324 articles were identified, and finally 22 studies were selected for review. Having reviewed the articles, the data needed were extracted and the results were synthesized narratively. RESULTS: The results showed that most of the systems reviewed in this study used the minimum data set suggested by the World Health Organization injury surveillance guidelines along with supplementary data. The main functions considered for the system were injury track, data analysis, report, data linkage, electronic monitoring and data dissemination. CONCLUSION ISISs can help to improve healthcare planning and injury prevention. Since different countries have various technical and organizational infrastructures, it is essential to identify system requirements in different settings.
Datasets as Topic ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Information Systems ; Health Planning ; Humans ; Public Health Surveillance ; methods ; Wounds and Injuries ; prevention & control

The official investigation of death and the certification of the cause of death are among the most critical roles played by the government in maintaining public safety, carrying out public health surveillance, and compiling national health statistics. Currently, Korea has no single comprehensive act governing the postmortem examination system. Therefore, there might be some discord, contradiction, or defect in the current legal regime governing the examination of dead bodies. The authors reviewed various legislative instruments that contain the words, “death,” “corpse,” “autopsy,” “death investigation,” and “cause of death” by searching the website of the National Law Information Center (http://www.law.go.kr), which is run by the government. The authors found 64 laws and rules, of which 47 were reviewed for this study, after ensuring relevance to the subject. After a review and comparison of the acts and rules, the authors point out the discords, contradictions, and defects in the current legal regime on corpses and death investigations. They then present the need for a single comprehensive legislation addressing postmortem examination.
Autopsy ; Cadaver ; Cause of Death ; Certification ; Information Centers ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Public Health Surveillance ; Social Control, Formal

Surveillance is the ongoing and systematic collection, analysis of disease related data and dissemination of the information to the people who need it, and application of it to disease prevention and control. So, it is composed of reportable disease; system of data collection, analysis, distribution; coorporation of medical institution with public health organization and effective control. The most dynamic and important part of surveillance is the feedback mechanism. As for positive ways of feedback, there are dissemination of collected and analysed information and reimbursement to the reporters. Legal punishment is the negative way of feedback. The common systems that the developed countries use for communicable disease surveillance are notifiable disease surveillance, sentinel surveillance, and laboratory surveillance systems. Notifiable disease surveillance is for the diseases that their impact is serious to the community when epidemic occurs even though the number of cases is small. Most countries have this type of surveillance, but they suffer from low reporting rate. Sentinel surveillance is for the disease which is mild or whose trend is to be traced for the evaluation of the public health programs. Sampled reporters notifies the disease information voluntarily not by law. Laboratory surveillance is to support the notifiable and sentinel surveillance. It provides laboratory information on the microorganism and antibody level of the disease. Surveillance of communicable diseases in Korea is totally dependent on the notifiable disease reporting system, and there are many problems involved. To improve the surveillance of communicable diseases, it is strongly recommended that the sentinel and laboratory surveillance systems be adopted.
Communicable Diseases* ; Data Collection ; Developed Countries ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Public Health ; Punishment ; Sentinel Surveillance*

OBJECTIVES: To describe the emergence of Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) W135 in Côte d'Ivoire and its characteristics compared to NmA. METHODS: Data on Nm samples isolated at the National Reference Center for meningitis in Côte d'Ivoire between 2007 and 2012 were analyzed. Socio-demographic data and biological information on the samples were extracted from the database. Categorical variables, such as sex and the serotype of the bacteria, were compared using the Fisher exact test, while the distribution of continuous variables, such as age, was compared using the Wilcoxon test. RESULTS: Among the 175 Nm samples, 57 were NmA, 4 were NmB, 13 were NmC, and 99 were NmW135. The geographical distribution of NmA and NmW135 did not show a significant difference according to age or sex. NmW135 was more common than NmA in the northern health districts of Cote d'Ivoire (85.9 vs. 45.5%; p < 0.001). No sample of NmA has been isolated since 2009, while 95% of the type W135 samples were isolated between 2010 and 2012. CONCLUSION: This study highlighted the emergence of NmW135 in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as the simultaneous disappearance of NmA. It is important to improve laboratory-based surveillance of meningitis to assess trends in the circulation of bacteria and to detect the emergence of new serogroups earlier.
Bacteria ; Cote d'Ivoire* ; Meningitis ; Meningitis, Bacterial ; Neisseria meningitidis* ; Neisseria* ; Public Health Surveillance ; Serogroup

The provincial government of Jeju, South Korea, was notified that a 42-year-old man infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus had gone sightseeing in Jeju Island. Although the visiting period might be interpreted as the incubation period of MERS, the province decided to conduct active surveillance to prevent a worst-case scenario. Based on the channel of movement of the patient, healthy isolation and active monitoring were conducted for persons who came in contact with the patient. During the active surveillance, none of the 56 persons in self-isolation and 123 persons under active monitoring became infected. This fact supports that MERS is not contagious during the incubation period.
Adult ; Communicable Diseases ; Coronavirus* ; Epidemiology ; Humans ; Korea ; Middle East* ; Public Health Surveillance ; State Government

OBJECTIVES: To describe the emergence of Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) W135 in Côte d'Ivoire and its characteristics compared to NmA.METHODS: Data on Nm samples isolated at the National Reference Center for meningitis in Côte d'Ivoire between 2007 and 2012 were analyzed. Socio-demographic data and biological information on the samples were extracted from the database. Categorical variables, such as sex and the serotype of the bacteria, were compared using the Fisher exact test, while the distribution of continuous variables, such as age, was compared using the Wilcoxon test.RESULTS: Among the 175 Nm samples, 57 were NmA, 4 were NmB, 13 were NmC, and 99 were NmW135. The geographical distribution of NmA and NmW135 did not show a significant difference according to age or sex. NmW135 was more common than NmA in the northern health districts of Cote d'Ivoire (85.9 vs. 45.5%; p < 0.001). No sample of NmA has been isolated since 2009, while 95% of the type W135 samples were isolated between 2010 and 2012.CONCLUSION: This study highlighted the emergence of NmW135 in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as the simultaneous disappearance of NmA. It is important to improve laboratory-based surveillance of meningitis to assess trends in the circulation of bacteria and to detect the emergence of new serogroups earlier.
Bacteria ; Cote d'Ivoire ; Meningitis ; Meningitis, Bacterial ; Neisseria meningitidis ; Neisseria ; Public Health Surveillance ; Serogroup