Although postconflict Afghanistan has some of the worst health indicators in the world, the government is working hard to rebuild the health infrastructure, extend services to underserved areas and improve the quality of health services. An outbreak of cholera ElTor O1 that struck Kabul and spread nationwide in 2005, prompted a collaborative response from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, p...

Sierra Leone experienced intense transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD) from May 2014 to November 2015 during which a total of 8,704 confirmed cases and over 3,589 confirmed deaths were reported. Our field observation showed many issues in the EVD data management system, which may have contributed to the magnitude and long duration of the outbreak. In this perspective article, we explain the...

Optimal intervention for disease outbreaks is often impeded by severe scientific uncertainty. Adaptive management (AM), long-used in natural resource management, is a structured decision-making approach to solving dynamic problems that accounts for the value of resolving uncertainty via real-time evaluation of alternative models. We propose an AM approach to design and evaluate intervention str...

BACKGROUND Research has been conducted on interventions to control dengue transmission and respond to outbreaks. A summary of the available evidence will help inform disease control policy decisions and research directions, both for dengue and, more broadly, for all Aedes-borne arboviral diseases. METHOD A research-to-policy forum was convened by TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Tr...

Any outbreak of an animal disease classified as a List A disease by the Office International des Epizooties, such as classical swine fever (CSF), has severe consequences for animal welfare, livestock production, exports of animals and animal products and the environment. Experience shows that early detection and response to a suspected disease outbreak will maximise the effectiveness of the eme...

Background.  The impact of meningitis outbreaks is substantial. We aim to calculate the costs of meningococcal outbreaks in Brazil and Colombia from the healthcare system perspective. Methods.  A review of the literature was performed on costs associated with meningococcal outbreak in Latin America. Structured interviews capturing information about the use of resources, expenses allocated to tr...

The Situated Action approach to AI emphasizes the role of the environment in the generation and control of behavior; see (Norman 1993) for an introduction. Work to date has focused mainly on activity within spatially and temporally localized environments such as kitchens and video games (Agre & Chapman 1987; Agre & Horswill 1992). How useful is this perspective when larger-scale activities are ...

BACKGROUND The increasing frequency and intensity of dengue outbreaks in endemic and non-endemic countries requires a rational, evidence based response. To this end, we aimed to collate the experiences of a number of affected countries, identify strengths and limitations in dengue surveillance, outbreak preparedness, detection and response and contribute towards the development of a model conti...

On July 17, 2015, the Bureau of Communicable Disease of the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) detected an abnormal number and distribution of Legionnaires’ disease (LD) cases in the South Bronx. This cluster of cases would eventually grow into the largest outbreak of LD in NYC history. The NYC DOHMH led the outbreak response, part of which included sampling num...

Background: Following the outbreak of eltor cholera in Iraq’s Kurdistan, Iran was threatened through the western border. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the health system response of Marivan city in Kurdistan Province (Iran) as a risky gateway for the outbreak of eltor cholera epidemic in Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was implemented in...