Surveillance System for Early Detection of Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) Outbreaks Based on Participatory Report of Student Absences

摘要

One of the serious problems in health sector is the existence of disease outbreaks that may increase rapidly, especially when the signs of outbreaks or potential outbreaks are too late to detect. People who perceive mild symptoms of illness are usually reluctant to go to any health units though these could be the early signs of a more serious one. Therefore, latest information from citizens about the symptoms of disease that are emerging in their nearby environment is necessary. This research proposes a surveillance system for monitoring the existence of a contagious disease known as Influenza-Like Illness (ILI). The system is designed as a participatory application that enables authorized citizens, such as high school health personnel, to report students who do not come to school because of illness along with the perceived complaints. The outcome of this research is a geographic information system that allows the health authority to detect areas affected by ILI outbreak, to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution of ILI occurrences, and to analyze the trend of data distribution presented as descriptive epidemiology reports. This research shows that participatory reports on a limited sample of data can be utilized to generate a surveillance system that is simple, flexible, and quick at recognizing the existence of disease outbreaks.