Page 52 - Timeliness of Infectious Disease Notification & Response Systems - Corien Swaan
P. 52

50 Chapter 2
Conclusions
In recent years in the Netherlands, a disappointingly large number infectious disease cases have not been reported within the incubation period, especial- ly when the incubation period is short and laboratory testing is time-consum- ing, resulting in a considerable delay of response measures. For shigellosis and EHEC/STEC infections, additional control measures may therefore be necessary. Even for diseases with long incubation periods, such as measles and HAV infec- tion, a considerable percentage has been reported after a time interval correct- ed for the period of infectiousness before disease onset (Ic).
Delays in patient presentation or in performance of laboratory testing can cause unavoidable delays in MHS notification. However, delay after laboratory diagnosis can be minimised by optimising reporting procedures and using fast communication methods. We show that in the Netherlands, the use of adjusted web forms for reporting or of automated laboratory reporting systems have yet to be explored.
Whatever the systems used, evaluating the time intervals of reporting for each infectious disease must be an ongoing process, and the development of in- ternational standardised methods to measure timeliness needs to be promoted.
The use of intervals such as latent period and generation time and the dis- tributions of those intervals may allow better study of the concept of timeliness in infectious disease surveillance systems.





























































































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