|
|
 |
Pathogen
Surveillance
The WHOCC-Plague
maintains a collaborative plague surveillance program with state and local
governments in the United States. A primary goal of this program is to
identify and investigate all suspect cases of human plague that occur
in this country. Because of its high case fatality rate and epidemic potential,
plague remains a Class I notifiable disease potentially subject to quarantine
and other provisions of the International Health Regulations. In order
to comply with these regulations, all laboratory-confirmed human cases
in the United States are reported to CDC's Division of Global Migration,
which relays this information to the World Health Organization in Geneva,
Switzerland. The WHOCC-Plague also actively participates in epidemiological
and environmental investigations of all human cases in the United States.
In many instances, this involves onsite participation in case investigations
to provide expert consultation, assist with patient interviews, determine
likely exposure sites, review case management practices, identify case
contacts, assess plague risks for others in the community, and assist
with follow-up prevention and control activities.
Human plague risks
increase greatly when epizootics cause high mortality in susceptible
animal populations. The WHOCC-Plague, therefore, maintains collaborative
animal-based surveillance programs that are intended to rapidly identify
threatening epizootics so that appropriate preventive measures can be
taken before human cases occur. These animal-based programs rely on
surveillance data generated through serosurveys of rodents and rodent-consuming
carnivores, analyses of fleas or tissues taken from trapped animals
or carcasses, and visual monitoring of activity levels in colonies of
diurnal, plague-susceptible rodents.
Recently, the WHOCC-Plague
has enhanced its molecular epidemiology capabilities in order to better
identify the sources and spread of strains isolated from human plague
cases or outbreaks in animal populations. These efforts include comparative
studies of plasmids found in plague strains from the United States,
China, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere around the world. The Center also has
undertaken more extensive antimicrobial sensitivity testing so that
the occurrence and distribution of drug resistant plague strains can
be more effectively monitored.
In addition to
the human and animal-based surveillance activities routinely undertaken
by the WHOCC-Plague, the Center advises other plague prevention programs
on the design and implementation of human and animal-based plague surveillance
systems.
Return to top of page
|
