HPR volume 12 issue 7: news (23 February)
Updated 21 December 2018
© Crown copyright 2018
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-protection-report-volume-12-2018/hpr-volume-12-issue-7-news-23-february
New PHE emerging infections publications
PHE has added a number of new publications to its webpages concerned with emerging infections. This includes a monthly report on known high-consequence infectious disease (HCID) events occurring around the world. The latest edition of the High Consequence Infectious Disease monthly summary provides a global overview of recent, known HCID events, as at January 2018 [1].
HCIDs are characterised by acute infectious illness, ability to spread person-to-person, high case-fatality rate, difficulty in rapid recognition and detection, lack of effective treatments and the need for coordination of national level responses. The purpose of the newly-available monthly report is to raise awareness of these events that have the potential to cause more widespread outbreaks.
The HCID monthly summary complements PHE’s Emerging Infections monthly summaries – which are concerned with outbreaks and incidents that could affect UK public health [2].
Both the HCID and EI monthly reports are available on the PHE Emerging Infections Collection webpages [3].
An emerging infectious disease can be either a newly recognised infectious disease or a known disease whose reported incidence within the past two decades has been increasing (or threatens to increase) in a specific place, or among a specific population. That might include: previously undetected or unknown infectious agents; a known agent that has spread to a new geographical location or new population; or re-emergence of known infections after a decline in incidence.
Two new graphical presentations have been added to the EI webpages, providing overviews of emergence over the past two decades: a Timeline of Emerging Infections since 1997 [4] and a Global Map of Emerging Infections since 1997 [5].
The latest edition of PHE’s Public Health Matters blog, titled Disease Detectives, provides an overview of the work of the agency’s Emerging Infections and Zoonoses Team [6].
References
- PHE (16 February, 2018). Global high consequence infectious disease events: summary, January 2018.
- Emerging infections: monthly summaries.
- PHE webpages. Emerging Infections
- Timeline of new and emerging infections since 1997
- Global map of significant and new emering infections: spread to new areas since 1997
- PHE (21 February, 2018). Disease Detectives: keeping track of new and emerging infectious diseases