Abstract
In 2012, London hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games (the Games), with events occurring throughout the United Kingdom (UK) between 27 July and 9 September 2012. Public health surveillance was performed by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). Collaboration between the HPA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was established for the detection and assessment of significant infectious disease events (SIDEs) occurring outside the UK during the time of the Games. Additionally, ECDC undertook an internal prioritisation exercise to facilitate ECDC’s decisions on which SIDEs should have preferentially enhanced monitoring through epidemic intelligence activities for detection and reporting in daily surveillance in the European Union (EU). A team of ECDC experts evaluated potential public health risks to the Games, selecting and prioritising SIDEs for event-based surveillance with regard to their potential for importation to the Games, occurrence during the Games or export to the EU/European Economic Area from the Games. The team opted for a multilevel approach including comprehensive disease selection, development and use of a qualitative matrix scoring system and a Delphi method for disease prioritisation. The experts selected 71 infectious diseases to enter the prioritisation exercise of which 27 were considered as priority for epidemic intelligence activities by ECDC for the EU for the Games.
Highlights
A mass gathering (MG) has been defined as a gathering of more than 1,000 persons at a specific location for a specific purpose and for a defined duration [1,2]
As MGs can represent a burden for public health systems, some preparedness planning should be considered in advance to mitigate the unusual pressures
A list of infectious diseases to consider for prioritisation was compiled using the following criteria: (i) mandatorily notifiable infectious diseases that were reported to The European Surveillance System (TESSy) in 2010; (ii) potential infectious threats to Europe that had been identified and monitored in the Threat Tracking Tool in June to September of 2005 to 2011 inclusive, i.e. the months surrounding the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; (iii) events reported in the Health Protection Agency (HPA)’s weekly epidemiological reports from May to September 2011; (iv) diseases reportable to the World Health Organization according to the International Health Regulations, e.g. poliomyelitis due to wild type poliovirus; and (v) infectious agents with deliberate release potential [25,26,27,28,29,30]
Summary
A mass gathering (MG) has been defined as a gathering of more than 1,000 persons at a specific location for a specific purpose and for a defined duration [1,2]. Adverse health events at MGs are relatively rare, but have been described in the literature [3,4]. In 2012, London hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games (the Games), with events occurring throughout the United Kingdom (UK) between 27 July and 9. Information regarding infectious and non-infectious events is collected by the epidemic intelligence team at ECDC in a database for event-based surveillance named the Threat Tracking Tool. A dedicated indicator-based surveillance database, The European Surveillance System (TESSy), collects data on mandatorily notifiable diseases sent by Member States of the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) under Decision 2119/98/ EC [9,10]: at the time of the Games, this included 27 EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
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 call
