Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) Cooperative Agreement Program
Funding Initiated In 2001

FY05 Funding April 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006 - $805,898

Activities Proposed for FY 05

Antimicrobial Resistance, Food Safety, Hepatitis Prevention and Control, Influenza Surveillance and Response, National Electronic Disease Surveillance System, and West Nile Virus

Key Performance Indicators

Antimicrobial Resistance

• Evaluate the community education campaign through a CAUse Survey for Public Awareness and Knowledge for a sample group of parents from two targeted communities in January-March 2006. The surveys will be conducted before and after the campaign in several communities where the billboards and newspaper ads were shown versus a community where they were not shown.
• Monitor the Medicaid and BC/BS antibiotic prescribing data at the medical practice level to identify decreases in trends for inappropriate prescribing.
• Complete a written report for the DRSP Sentinel Lab Surveillance, publish in Epi notes or journals, and disseminate quarterly reports to participating hospitals.
• Monitor patters of anti-microbial drug use in South Carolina.

Food Safety

• Completion of 75 percent of planned foodborne tabletop exercises by end of grant cycle.
• Completion of Norovirus for Institutional Settings policy and procedures by end of grant cycle.
• EFORS reporting 75 percent of outbreaks within 60 days of the date the first case became ill.
• Complete EFORS data for the following fields in 80 percent of reported outbreaks: Number of lab-confirmed cases; age of cases; sex of cases; number of hospitalizations; number of deaths.
• The BoL will continue to provide collection materials such as Cary-Blair transport medium, collection containers, and environmental swabs for the purpose of keeping the already placed foodborne outbreak investigation kits current and effective.
• Participation in and submission of foodborne illness outbreak and surveillance data to PulseNet by the BoL will continue.
• The BoL Bacteriology Laboratory will continue to conduct STEC surveillance by traditional biochemical and EIA methodologies. The BoL Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory will implement and validate a new real time PCR assay for STEC detection by December 2005.
• Participation in NARMS by the BoL will be sustained.

Hepatitis Prevention and Control

• Monthly report generated from the DHEC BoL and sent to the Hepatitis C Coordinator containing the number of hepatitis C EIA, RIBA, and viral load tests performed by the BoL and the number of positive tests.
• Upon completion of training, documentation by the Hotline Staff of the number and types of calls received from individuals requesting information on Hepatitis C.

Influenza Surveillance and Response

• Maintain and update the SC DHEC Influenza Surveillance website.
• The BoL will continue to perform virus isolation, typing and sub-typing as requested from October 1, 2005 through March 31, 2006.
• The BoL will mail collection kits, free of charge, to at least sixty influenza sentinel providers by October 7, 2005. This list of providers will include county health departments, state universities, and private physicians.

National Electronic Disease Surveillance System

• Implementation of agency Internet security architecture.
• Receipt of electronic lab reports from three additional hospitals or in state laboratories with 95 percent accuracy.

West Nile Virus

• Document all activities with regard to mosquito, bird, human, horse, and mammal surveillance. Statistics will be kept on collection sites, trap types, trap nights, trap dates, and which personnel are performing the collections. All surveillance data will be entered in CDC's Arbonet reporting system on a weekly to monthly basis; positive results will be entered within one day of confirmation of test results.
• Investigate suspect neuroinvasive human cases to obtain complete clinical histories and to ensure that all cases are confirmed at the state public health laboratory.
• Surveillance data, at a minimum, will be recorded for WNV fever cases, and neuroinvasive cases will be fully investigated; these data will be captured in an electronic disease surveillance system called CHESS, Carolina Health Electronic Surveillance System.
• Document all activities with regard to education and training.

Contact Information and Links

James J. Gibson, MD, MPH
State Epidemiologist/Director, Bureau of Disease Control
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
1751 Calhon Street
Columbia, SC 29201

South Carolina Careful Antibiotic Use (CAUse) Website: http://www.scdhec.gov/sccause/