Vital Systems Security

The recent confirmation of an outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter (Peter Pan and Great Value brands) demonstrates another weakness in U.S. disease surveillance. This CDC announcement details the process by which a food-borne disease outbreak is detected, confirmed, and tracked.

“PulseNet (the national subtyping network for foodborne disease surveillance coordinated by CDC) detected a slowly rising increase in cases of Salmonella Tennessee this fall. OutbreakNet (the national network of public health officials coordinated by CDC that investigates enteric disease outbreaks) then worked for several weeks to identify this unusual food vehicle. Public health officials from several states have isolated Salmonella from open jars of peanut butter of both Peter Pan and Great Value brand. For nine jars, the serotype has been confirmed as Tennessee and DNA fingerprinting has shown that the pattern is the outbreak strain.”
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A recent Boston Globe article describes how Boston Public Health is using syndromic surveillance to detect an ongoing large-scale outbreak of norovirus (a gastrointestinal disease).  The article explicitly distinguishes uses for bioterror and for natural disease: “Initially, the tracking systems, known as syndromic surveillance networks, were trumpeted for their potential to detect bioterror attacks.
But since dozens of public and private health agencies activated the networks, specialists have increasingly recognized that the first-generation systems now in operation may be better suited for identifying large outbreaks of gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses.”

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As public health blog Effect Measure puts it, “It’s January and once again the bird flu news is unsettling.” Read the rest of this entry »