Question

Containing and tracing are public health functions backed by Epidemiology. Suppose you are County Health Director. Discuss what data would you need to successfully implement contact tracing and how you would use the data to make one particular decision.

Answer 1

Contact tracing is the process, where public health staff work with a patient to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious. contact tracing is most effective either early in the course of an outbreak or much later in the outbreak when other measures have reduced disease incidence to low levels. For that purpose,

• To protect patient privacy, contacts are only informed that they may have been exposed to a patient with the infection.
• Contacts are provided with education, information, and support to understand their risk, what they should do to separate themselves from others who are not exposed, monitor themselves for illness, and the possibility that they could spread the infection to others even if they themselves do not feel ill.

Data needed for contact tracing in community includes

• The details of index case in community and case identification through reporting cases to a public health surveillance system.
• Case interviewing with the index case by trained public health workers to identify close contacts.
• Notifying those contacts of their potential exposure to the infectious agent
• Mode of detection of the disease.
• Presence of contacts in the current place of residence.
• Index patient consent to disclosure and household/neighbour contact screening.
• Household and neighbour contact screening.
• Details of contact listed.
• Details of contact traced.
• Details of number of cases detected.
• Details of number of cases confirmed and suspected.
• Informations and details about contacts screened, newly confirmed or suspected cases per index case.
• Details of the estimated community members.
• Details of vulnerable population like, old age, newborn, childrens below 5 years, nursing mothers, pregnanat women etc.
• Services availbe for the community such disease control strategy, testing, quarantine, case isolation, prophylactic therapy, immunization, or treatment.