OutbreakNet Enhanced 2017 Summary

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Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Chicago, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Philadelphia, Texas, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.

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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 to 26 sites during 2017.

Program Highlights

To showcase the value and impact of providing resources to enteric disease programs, program overviews and activities supported by OBNE funds were presented at scientific conferences, programmatic meetings, and invited talks including presentations at:

• PulseNet and OutbreakNet regional meetings
• Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Annual Meeting
• Integrated Foodborne Outbreak Response and Management (InFORM) Conference
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Rapid Response Team (RRT) Annual Face-to-Face Meeting
• Site-specific meetings and training events

During 2017, the OBNE website was updated to include recent OBNE successes, new site profile information, and the 2016 performance metrics data table and summary. OBNE collaborated with several sites to develop success stories about specific projects they conducted during 2017 that were published online in early 2018.

Program Performance

OBNE performance metrics have been collected since 2016. Sites use metrics 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. The metrics are revised as needed to best meet program needs.

Metrics 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 (collectively referred to as SC metrics) were reported for January 1, 2017–December 31, 2017. Page two includes figures and graphs of highlighted metrics for 2017. Information on all of the metrics, including complete data tables, is available on the OBNE website.

Select Metrics for Salmonella, STEC, and Listeria

More than
40,000 cases
reported

Over
1,100 clusters
detected

Attempted interviews
with an average of
92% of cases

Median number of days for OBNE sites to attempt to interview SSL case-patients decreased from 2016 to 2017

Improvements in timeliness help sites conduct faster investigations to quickly respond to and control outbreaks, preventing more people from getting sick. Download and view chart data excel icon[XLS – 29 KB].

2016= teal/left;.   2017= orange/right

Percentage of SSL primary isolates OBNE sites tested by whole genome sequencing at their Public Health Labs from 2016 to 2017*

While sites increased their capacity to conduct WGS testing, they maintained PFGE testing above 90% for SSL primary isolates. Download and view chart data excel icon[XLS – 29 KB].

*Not a required metric;    n= number of sites;    Year 1= 2016;    Year 2= 2017