Disease Control Case Study (9)

Question 1

What is the number 1 goal in a disease outbreak? Additional goals?

Answer 1

stop the disease outbreak

additional: determine methods to prevent or mitigate future outbreaks; laws, policy, public education

Question 2

Describe hemolytic uremic syndrome and most common cause in children

Answer 2

results from the abnormal premature destruction of red blood cells

damaged red blood cells start to clog the filtering system in the kidneys

in children: due to infection w/ E. coli (O157:H7)

Question 3

Describe the role of PulseNet in disease investigation

Answer 3

provides genetic “fingerprints” that link cases

Question 4

Define an outbreak

Answer 4

the occurrence of cases in excess of what would be expected in time, place, or
population

This excess could be small in numbers for example even a single case of Zika virus or Dengue virus in our area would be considered an outbreak where 8 cases of seasonal flu would generally not be.

Question 5

State the first 3 CDC steps in disease investigation

Answer 5

1. confirm existence of an epidemic/outbreak
2. verify the diagnosis
3. develop a case definition

Question 6

Describe a case definition

Answer 6

standard criteria for categorizing an individual as a case

specific to an outbreak

Question 7

Describe case control study and selection

Answer 7

takes a case of the disease and matches them with an individual that has similar characteristics of background without the disease and look back in time to compare their exposure to compare incidence or attack rates

Question 8

What is an ideal case-control pair?

Answer 8

identical twins who lived in same house, worked in sample place, etc