Epidemiology of infectious disease:

The Disease Facts section of the website of the UK Public Health Laboratory Service (http //www.phls.co.uk/facts/index.htm) is a valuable resource of contemporary background information on the prevalence and epidemiology of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance in the UK. 

Phihpson, T. 2000. Economic Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, in Handbook of Health Economics, ed.hy A.]. Cvlyet and]. P.Newhouse, IB 1761-1769. Amsterdam Elsevier Science. 

Epidemiological Clues to a Biological Event. With awareness of the baseline data for their practice setting, nurses should be alert for unusual patterns of disease or health-related indicators. Representative examples of unusual patterns of diseases that might suggest a deliberate bioterrorist act are presented in Table 22.1 (U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases [USAMRIID], 2005 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 2001). 

Epidemiologically, the country s disease pattern is in a transitional phase from a domination of infectious diseases and malnutrition associated with underdevelopment to one of predominantly noncommunicable diseases, reflective of the socioeconomic and life-style changes. The threat of AIDS is evident in the increasing number of cases and HIV carriers identified. As the country becomes increasingly industrialised, occupational health will be a priority. 

LeDuc, J.W. 1989. Epidemiology of Hemorrhagic Fever Viruses. Reviews of Infectious Diseases ll(Supp.4) S730-S725. 

Olsen, S.J., Bishop, R., Brenner, F.W., Roels, T.H., et al. 2001. The changing epidemiology of Salmonella Trends in serotypes isolated from humans in the United States, 1987-1997. Journal of Infectious Diseases 183 753-761. 

Koopmans, M.P.G., Vinje, De Wit, M., Leenen, I., van der Poel, W., and Duynhoven, Y. 2000. Molecular epidemiology of human enteric caliciviruses in the Netherlands. Journal of Infectious Diseases 181(Suppl. 2) S262-S269. 

In clinically and epidemiologically severe infectious diseases, the rapid identihcation and detection of the causative organism is crucial for effective control, management, and prompt treatment of the infection. The conventional laboratory methods involve culture, microscopy, and biochemical tests [1]. This process is laborious and takes 2 to 4 days or longer to obtain a result. Culture methods often lack sensitivity, especially for poorly handled samples or clinical samples from patients previously treated with antibiotics [2]. 

Mark C. Enright, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Inqrerial College, London, 2007. 

Immune reactions The role of UV radiation in modulating immune reactions in humans is well established and it is likely that increased UV-B radiation will impact the incidence of infectious diseases[6]. Risk factors for certain cancers (skin cancer and non-Hodgkin s lymphoma) include immunosuppression. UV-induced immunosuppression is therefore likely to promote such cancers, but no epidemiological supporting data are available at the present time. 

Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM) is a Java-written framework under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) that is used for creating spatial and temporal models of infectious diseases. 

University Hospital Zurich, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, Ramistrasse 100, CH-8091 Zurich, Switzerland. 

Disease A disturbance in the state of health wherein the body cannot carry out all its normal functions. See also Epidemiology and Infectious Disease. 

Hedberg C W, MacDonald K L and Osterholm M T (1994), Changing epidemiology of food-borne disease a Minnesota perspective , Clinical Infectious Diseases, 18, 671-682. 

Reliable information on the epidemiology, disease severity, and effect on public health is essential to sustain the need for a vaccine. The authorities must develop the policy to prevent infectious diseases and in the same time countermeasures against effects of biological weapons attack. 

While profound immunosuppression can lead to an increased incidence of infectious or neoplastic diseases, interpreting data from experimental immunotoxicology studies or epidemiological studies for quantitative risk assessment purposes can be problematic. This is because inadvertent exposures to immunotoxic agents may often be expressed as a mild-to-moderate change, reflected, for example, by a 15 to 25% decrement in an immune parameter compared to control values. To help address the clinical consequences of mild-to-moderate immunosuppression, we examined available experimental, clinical and epidemiological studies that examined the association between suppression of immune function and infectious disease, independent of the etiology of suppression. 

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