Early Surveillance and Public Health Emergency Responses Between Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Avian Influenza in China: A Case-Comparison Study.

Tiantian Zhang,Ge Bai,Ruiming Dai,Li Luo,Qian Wang,Ying Wang

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.629295

Abstract

Background: Since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a worldwide pandemic, the early surveillance and public health emergency disposal are considered crucial to curb this emerging infectious disease. However, studies of COVID-19 on this topic in China are relatively few.Methods: A case-comparison study was conducted using a set of six key time nodes to form a reference framework for evaluating early surveillance and public health emergency disposal between H7N9 avian influenza (2013) in Shanghai and COVID-19 in Wuhan, China.Findings: A report to the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China, for the first hospitalized patient was sent after 6 and 20 days for H7N9 avian influenza and COVID-19, respectively. In contrast, the pathogen was identified faster in the case of COVID-19 than in the case of H7N9 avian influenza (12 vs. 31 days). The government response to COVID-19 was 10 days later than that to avian influenza. The entire process of early surveillance and public health emergency disposal lasted 5 days longer in COVID-19 than in H7N9 avian influenza (46 vs. 41 days).Conclusions: The identification of the unknown pathogen improved in China between the outbreaks of avian influenza and COVID-19. The longer emergency disposal period in the case of COVID-19 could be attributed to the government's slower response to the epidemic. Improving public health emergency management could lessen the adverse social effects of emerging infectious diseases and public health crisis in the future.

Highlights

In the past 20 years, China has experienced several public health crises due to infectious disease outbreaks, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, H1N1 swine influenza in 2009, and H7N9 avian influenza in 2013, seriously impacting health, economy, and global security [1,2,3]
We further evaluated three crucial periods during the public health emergency disposal of emerging infectious diseases: time taken by the hospital to report a case to the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), time taken to identify the pathogen i.e., organization of the CDC laboratory to detect and recheck the pathogen, and time taken by the government to respond i.e., implementation of the emergency response once the pathogen is confirmed
In this case-comparative study, the time taken to detect unknown pathogens had improved between the outbreaks of H7N9 avian influenza and COVID-19, whereas the time taken for hospitals to report a case to the local CDC and the government’s emergency response was significantly increased

Summary

Introduction

In the past 20 years, China has experienced several public health crises due to infectious disease outbreaks, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, H1N1 swine influenza in 2009, and H7N9 avian influenza in 2013, seriously impacting health, economy, and global security [1,2,3]. These outbreaks challenged the health emergency management in several countries, especially. Since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a worldwide pandemic, the early surveillance and public health emergency disposal are considered crucial to curb this emerging infectious disease. Studies of COVID-19 on this topic in China are relatively few

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