Outbreak Investigation Process

An investigation was necessary to find the cause of the outbreak, and how to stop it from continuing to spread. The campus clinic was interested in testing the following nine patients: Sue, Jill, Anthony, Wanda, Maggie, Maria, Arnie, Marco, and Alvin. All of the students have similar symptoms and agreed to being tested except for Alvin.

1. Understanding epidemiologic concepts of the chain of transmission of organisms from host to victim, describe how EH could have been infected.

At the first possible outbreak of SARS, the nurse will need to follow protocol. The initiation of the protocol begins with an assessment of the patient. A doctor will determine if the patient is possibly infected with SARS by following the physical and epidemiologic criteria. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention mandates reporting to the all cases where the patient has pneumonia of an unknown origin, and could have recently been exposed of the SARS virus [ (Center of Disease Control, 2005) ]. Once the report has been made the community health nurse should have all hospitalized patients with respiratory symptoms questioned on their recent history and possibilities of contact with the virus. Next, the community health nurse needs to educate staff and the community about possible ways to contract SARS, and encourage behaviors such as, frequent hand washing, covering their nose and mouth while coughing or sneezing, and using and properly disposing of tissues for respiratory secretions. [ (Center of Disease Control, 2005) ] Once health care members and the public are educated on the route of transmission they can prevent being exposed. Confirmed infected patients would be transferred to Seattle, where they can be in isolation rooms, patients can be more critically monitored, and research centers can be of benefit to

M1: Explain how to manage an outbreak of infection in health or social care setting

It is critical to understand the epidemiology of such diseases that overcome a population. With this skill, it would enable health care managers to incorporate such skills to make proper evidence and population based decisions, especially when health resources are limited. In addition, finance, planning, quality issue assessments, and evidence based public health practice would be considered (Healey & Lesneksi, 2011). This can allow them to not only develop best practices, but to also share them through the health care system (Healey & Lesneksi, 2011).

Information to get you started is located in the case study section in the back of the book on page 134. Answer the three questions listed on page 135. (The first question begins with 1: Do you think that an infected …).

M1 Explain how to manage an outbreak of infection in a health or social care setting

The emergency events caused by infectious disease, natural or anthropogenic causes with the potential to overwhelm or otherwise disrupt routine local capacities due to their timing, scale or unpredictability should be communicated properly and routinely which requires rapid knowledge transfer and uptake (Khan et al., 2017, p. 2).

Incidence is the rate of new or recently analyzed found diseases. It is for the most part reported as the quantity of new cases happening inside of a duration of time (i.e., every month, every year). It is more important when the incidence rate is accounted for as a small amount of the general public at danger of getting a disease (i.e., per 100,000 or per million population). Clearly, the accuracy of incidence rate information relies on the exactness of diagnosis and reporting of the infection. To report the rate of treatment of new cases following to these are known, even though not all incidence rates are untreated and not reported. Incidence rates are also categorized

At first I met Leslie Hernandez, the Health Planner, who directed me to Shoua Shinde, the epidemiologist and "department detective", whose areas of expertise were biology, microbiology, biostatistics, and knowledge of communicable diseases ("Outbreak at Watersedge," 2004). She informed me that there were many people in the hospital with severe diarrhea and other symptoms and asked for my help in order to understand what is going on. She introduced me to Terry Tower, the public health nurse, who offered me to analyze and map the results of the interview for the first five patients. After mapping the results of five interviews I pinpointed a place to start, which was the Thompson Park, because all five people aside from the other activities and places went there on the same day to participate in Thompson Park cleanup. Then Shoua asked me to go to the park, to explore and take notes of what I think could be important. Meanwhile the number of reported cases increased to 20. In the park I met Mai, the Environmental Health Specialist, whose areas of expertise was toxicology, biology, chemistry, water

The infectious outbreak I chose to research is the varicella-zoster virus, which causes varicella better known as chickenpox. The number of chickenpox cases can be decreased or can be decreased in severity by having two doses of the zoster vaccine. “Before the vaccine, about 4 million people would get chickenpox each year in the United States. Also, about 10,600 people were hospitalized and 100 to 150 died each year as a result of chickenpox.” ("Chickenpox (Varicella)")

A good epidemiological investigator takes several steps to conduct an outbreak investigation. The first step is to discuss the disease with someone knowledgeable about the disease, ask about similar outbreaks, what has been the source, how has it been transmitted, and who is at risk of contracting the disease ( Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice,2016) . It’s also important to include state and federal departments in the investigation the staff in these agencies can have more information in the outbreak. Once this is complete a hypothesis can be created. In the syphilis outbreak case a large group of young people have been diagnosed with syphilis these groups of people have interacted sexually on a regular basis. Anyone in

This paper will explore the role of epidemiology in the surveillance of the incidence of

In the first step to detect outbreak you should confirm diagnosis, define and identify cases, establish existence of an outbreak and prepare field work. For example, a case presented itself on botulism in Argentina with two different men coming into a hospital with signs of botulinum. The signs included difficulty walking, drooping eyelids, double vision, and inability to lift things. Fever was not a symptom of this disease so; the physician had to run test on the patients to determine a diagnosis of botulism. It is very important in this step that the doctors or medical professionals notify the ministry of health because botulism outbreaks can be lethal and it is a state of public emergency. In this step, it is important for Public health

Epidemiology is a medical science discipline that arranges the structure for studying the distribution and determinants of health, communicable disease, and circumstances related to health status. The epidemiology research help to understand in what means a person catch diseases, the changes, and how the disease affect the population. The nurses that work with these communities to help identify the onset of communicable diseases determine new victims, the patterns it spread, the causes or preventive methods are known as community or public health nursing (Maurer, Smith, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to explain on the concepts of a communicable disease “Chickenpox” with its own unique epidemiology and nursing research to this