Due to the spread of bluetongue (BT) in Europe in the last decade, a sentinel surveillance programme was initiated for Switzerland in 2003, consisting of serological sampling of sentinel cattle tested for BT virus antibodies, as well as entomological trapping of Culicoides midges from June until October. The aim of this study was to create a 'suitability map' of Switzerland, indicating areas of...

BACKGROUND Communication is a necessary tool for ensuring the provision of quality patient-centered care for patients who have life-threatening illnesses, and discussing all relevant end-of-life issues should not be limited to cancer patients. OBJECTIVE To examine the incidence and timing of general practitioners (GPs) discussing end-of-life issues with patients whose deaths were expected, an...

In Hong Kong, influenza sentinel surveillance systems have been recently established. Methods that compare current data to data from recent weeks may be appropriate to indicate the start of peak influenza activity. These methods can produce reliable and timely alerts at the start of the annual influenza peak season.

BACKGROUND Infectious disease outbreaks in communities can be controlled by early detection and effective prevention measures. Assessing the relative importance of each individual community member with respect to these two processes requires detailed knowledge about the underlying social contact network on which the disease can spread. However, mapping social contact networks is typically too r...

Azithromycin, administered with ceftriaxone, is recommended by the CDC for the treatment of gonorrhea. Many experts have expressed concern about the ease with which Neisseria gonorrhoeae can acquire macrolide resistance. We sought to describe gonococcal azithromycin susceptibility in the United States and to determine whether azithromycin susceptibility has changed over time. We analyzed data f...

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...

BACKGROUND During the 2009 influenza pandemic period, routine surveillance of influenza-like-illness (ILI) was conducted in The Netherlands by a network of sentinel general practitioners (GPs). In addition during the pandemic period, four other ILI/influenza surveillance systems existed. For pandemic preparedness, we evaluated the performance of the sentinel system and the others to assess whic...

According to the several scientific resources, Iran is considered to be among the melioidosis-endemic regions of the world; this is in stark contrast to the domestic stance in Iran, where the risk of melioidosis is speculated only as an emerging infectious disease in a non-endemic area. Recently, we have had devastating flash floods in the most provinces of Iran; the changing of soil structure ...

The history of WEE surveillance in Utah is reviewed, beginning with the 1933 outbreak involving 3,958 horses. The step by step formation of the Utah Mosquito Abatement Associations surveillance program from 1957 to the present is discussed. Results of an enlarged sentinel chicken flock surveillance program in Utah during 1983 (3 sero-conversions in September), 1984 and 1985 (no sero-conversion)...