The Issues

Advocate for improvements in disease surveillance, disease reporting andlaboratory identification systems

An effective public health and medical response will depend upon the ability of individual clinicians, field providers, and public health departments to quickly detect, accurately diagnose, rapidly contain and effectively treat an uncommon disease. Improving the capacity of local and state public health departments, public health laboratories, clinicians and hospitals to engage in disease surveillance and disease reporting will be critical in determining that a cluster of disease may be related to the intentional release of a biological or chemical agent. The monitoring of sudden changes in syndromic information gathered by EMS communication centers and telephone nurse triage call centers can also provide advance warning of community health threats. Further, local and state public health departments must have adequate capacity to determine the pathway of infectious disease outbreaks, and to contain them through employment of multiple strategies such as contact tracing, case finding, early diagnosis, immunization, prophylaxis, treatment, and/or quarantine. To facilitate this level of readiness, public health departments and hospitals will need adequate resources and significantly upgraded surveillance systems to detect and respond to unusual diseases or patterns of symptoms; public health laboratories will need to upgrade their capacity to carry out their essential analytic and reporting functions; and all public health, laboratory, and medical partners will require enhanced electronic information and communications systems to assure rapid and secure reporting and information exchange.