Annual report of the Australian National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory 2010-2011.

Annual report of the Australian National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory 2010-2011. Commun Dis Intell Q Rep. 2013 Jun;37(2):E105-14 Authors: Roberts J, Hobday L, Ibrahim A, Aitken T, Thorley B Abstract Australia conducts clinical surveillance for cases of polio-like illness in children in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended surveillance criteria for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). AFP cases are ascertained either by clinicians notifying the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit or designated nurses enrolling cases as part of the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance system at four sentinel tertiary paediatric hospitals. The National Enterovirus Reference Laboratory (NERL), formerly the National Poliovirus Reference Laboratory, is accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the testing of faecal specimens from cases of AFP and operates as a Poliovirus Regional Reference Laboratory for the Western Pacific Region. In 2010 and 2011, for the 3rd and 4th consecutive years, Australia met the WHO AFP surveillance performance indicator. This is indicative of a sensitive surveillance system capable of detecting an imported case of polio in children. However, the faecal collection rate for the virological investigation of AFP cases was below the WHO surveillance performance indicator in both years and represented a gap in Australia's polio surveillance. Enterovirus and environmental surveillance...
Source: Communicable Diseases Intelligence Quarterly Report - Category: Infectious Diseases Tags: Commun Dis Intell Q Rep Source Type: research