OutbreakNet Enhanced 2018 Summary

January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018

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Background

Map of United States highlighting OutbreakNet Enhanced sites: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Philadelphia, Texas, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Washington D.C.

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OutbreakNet Enhanced (OBNE) is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program that is designed to provide support to state and local health departments to improve their capacity to detect, investigate, control, and respond to enteric disease outbreaks. OBNE started in August 2015 with 11 sites and expanded in 2016, 2017, and 2018 to a total of 29 sites. Iowa, Kentucky, and Wyoming joined the program in 2018.

Program Highlights

To showcase the value and impact of providing targeted resources to enteric disease programs, updates on the program were presented at scientific conferences, programmatic meetings, and invited talks. OBNE sites shared their accomplishments with each other during monthly conference calls to learn about the strategies other sites have used to improve their processes.

Program activities were also shared through six success stories that were published to the OBNE website in 2018:

  • Regional Trainings Expand Local Knowledge on Enteric Outbreak Investigations in New York
  • Speedy Collaboration Leads to Successful Control of Massachusetts E. coli Outbreak
  • Connecting and Empowering Enteric Disease Investigators Throughout Arizona
  • Kansas Implements Centralized Interviewing Program
  • Joint Assessments Improve Outbreak Response in Chicago
  • California and Washington Craft Toolkits to Tackle Norovirus Outbreaks

Program Performance

OBNE performance metrics have been collected since 2016 to document the burden, timeliness, and completeness of enteric disease outbreak activities. Sites report metrics annually on both laboratory and epidemiologic aspects of outbreak investigations for Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria (collectively referred to as SSL metrics), as well as optional metrics for Shigella and Campylobacter. The metrics are revised as needed to best meet program needs.

Select Metrics for Salmonella, STEC, and Listeria
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More than
50,000 cases
reported

Illustration of a magnifying glass looking at people

Over
1,400 clusters
detected

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Average of
2.0 days
to initial interview attempt

Download and view chart data excel icon[XLS – 30KB]

Chart titled OBNE sites increased the percent of SSL cases with WGS testing while decreasing the time from isolate receipt to sequence upload to PulseNet.

Download and view chart data excel icon[XLS – 30KB]

Chart titled OBNE sites increased the percent of SSL cases with a full shotgun or exposure history, among cases with an exposure history obtained.

Download and view chart data excel icon[XLS – 30KB]

OBNE sites continue to improve the timeliness and completeness of enteric disease outbreak surveillance and response activities. They will continue to strengthen their outbreak response programs to conduct faster, better, and more complete investigations, to help limit the spread of enteric diseases. Download a print version of the OutbreakNet Enhanced 2018 Summary pdf icon[PDF – 320K].

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Illustration of the front cover of the OutbreakNET Enhanced Year Three Summary PDF document available to download.

Download a print version of the OutbreakNet Enhanced 2018 Summary pdf icon[PDF - 320K].

Page last reviewed: July 29, 2019
Content source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases (DFWED)