Abstract
The Netherlands Early Warning Committee (NEWC) aims to identify infectious diseases causing a potential threat to Dutch public health. Threats are assessed and published as (information) alerts for public health experts. To identify threats from abroad, the NEWC screens 10 sources reporting disease outbreaks each week. To identify the sources essential for complete and timely reporting, we retrospectively analysed 178 international alerts published between 31 January 2013 and 30 January 2014. In addition, we asked the four NEWC coordinators about the required time to scan the information sources. We documented the date and source in which the signal was detected. The ECDC Round Table (RT) Report and ProMED-mail were the most complete and timely sources, reporting 140 of 178 (79%) and 121 of 178 (68%) threats respectively. The combination of both sources reported 169 (95%) of all threats in a timely manner. Adding any of the other sources resulted in minor increases in the total threats found, but considerable additional time investment per additional threat. Only three potential relevant threats (2%) would have been missed by only using the ECDC RT Report and ProMed-mail. We concluded that using only the ECDC RT Report and ProMed-mail to identify threats from abroad maintains a sensitive Early Warning System.
Highlights
Infectious disease outbreaks are threats to public health that usually come unexpectedly and can have considerable consequences especially in case of epidemics and/or pandemics [1]
The three international information sources with the highest percentage of complete and timely reporting were the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Round Table (RT) Report (79%), ProMED-mail (68%) and the WHO Event Information Site (25%)
Our study showed that the Daily ECDC RT Report and ProMED-mail were the most complete and timely sources to identify infectious disease threats from abroad
Summary
Infectious disease outbreaks are threats to public health that usually come unexpectedly and can have considerable consequences especially in case of epidemics and/or pandemics [1]. The Netherlands Early Warning Committee (NEWC) was established in 1999 at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), in order to identify threats to public health caused by infectious diseases in the Netherlands, in a timely and complete fashion [2]. The weekly NEWC report aims to inform health professionals in order to improve infectious disease prevention and control in the Netherlands through enhancing awareness and ensuring the early detection and reporting of new cases or events. In 2006, a retrospective and descriptive evaluation was performed on the completeness of threat detection in the Netherlands by the NEWC. In 2008, a retrospective descriptive study was performed on the value of ProMed-mail for the NEWC. It was concluded that ProMED-mail has an added value over other sources used by the NEWC in the early detection of threats. ProMED-mail was appreciated for providing background and preliminary outbreak information
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
