Abstract
The Health Protection Agency and Health Protection Scotland used existing syndromic surveillance systems to monitor community health in the UK following the volcanic eruption in Iceland in April 2010.
Highlights
The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland began erupting on 14 April 2010
We detected rises in general practitioner-based diagnoses of asthma, allergic rhinitis, conjunctivitis and respiratory conditions (Figure 1); these increases were to be expected at that time of year, most probably because of increasing www.eurosurveillance.org pollen levels and possibly elevated ozone levels that were not associated with the volcanic eruption [11]
Despite the anecdotal reports of various sorts of sulphurous odours in parts of Scotland, extensive environmental monitoring of ambient air, rainwater, snow and grass demonstrated that the eruption had little measureable impact on the United Kingdom (UK) and that any exposure would have been low and not likely to have had a significant impact on health
Summary
Syndromic surveillance to assess the potential public health impact of the Icelandic volcanic ash plume across the United Kingdom, April 2010. The Health Protection Agency and Health Protection Scotland used existing syndromic surveillance systems to monitor community health during the incident: there were no unusual increases in any of the monitored conditions. This incident has again demonstrated the use of syndromic surveillance systems for monitoring community health in real time
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