BIOSURVEILLANCE
NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR BIOSURVEILLANCE
Earlier this year, President Barack Obama signed off on a National Strategy for Biosurveillance to guide the implementation and co-ordination of US biosurveillance eff orts. Among the core functions of this Strategy are to scan and discern the environment, and to identify and
This 2008 photograph depicts a CDC scientist examining a culture fl ask contain- ing Madin-Darby Canine Kidney epithelial cells (MDCK), looking for signs of growth.
integrate essential information. Although these functions can be broadly interpreted, they also
relate directly to the environmental detection of pathogens (BioWatch), and the data integration that occurs through public health-relevant data collection and data mining (BioSense and BioPhusion).
This young girl is receiving an intramuscular
injection in her leſt upper arm muscle - the
requisite vaccination appropriate for her age group.
An axillary bubo and edema exhibited by a plague patient.
Administering a dose of intradermal infl uenza virus vaccine.
A baby receiving his
scheduled vaccine injection in his leſt thigh muscle.
fi ndings, through the national Laboratory Response Network (LRN). And it is generally considered that particular funding that was used to build and support early-onset clinical pathogen identifi cation capacities in state and regional reference laboratories was well spent. This can now characterize a deadly pathogen prior to absolute confi rmation by national laboratories - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).
Rapid intervention The National Notifi able Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) is a public health disease surveillance system that collects, analyses, interprets, and disseminates health-related data for diseases and conditions designated as nationally notifi able. A key component of the NNDSS is the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), providing integrated and secure data transmission capabilities to participating states and the federal government. This is important since traditional methods
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of disease notifi cation, via the surface mail and telephone, can be much too slow for responding to an outbreak of an especially deadly pathogen, whether deliberate (such as an anthrax attack), or natural (such as a highly pathogenic pandemic infl uenza strain). The sooner that public health identifi cation (case and case contact information) is determined and medical intervention (medical and pharmaceutical treatments) can be applied to those potentially exposed to an especially deadly pathogen, the lesser the impact of that disease upon a population. This is illustrated in the graph on page 76. The ideal intervention time for a medical response is as
rapidly as possible aſt er an exposure to a deadly biological agent occurs. “Time is of the essence” can become a medical reality if, for example, persons were exposed to an infective dose of pneumonic plague, and then placed on pharmaceutical prophylaxis and provided medical treatment prior to displaying evident symptoms. With this deadly disease in particular, by the time that an infected individual displays pneumonic plague
Photos: ©CDC
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