Global public health intelligence: World Health Organization operational practices.

Early warning and response are key to tackle emerging and acute public health risks globally. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has implemented a robust approach to public health intelligence (PHI) for the global detection, verification and risk assessment of acute public health threats. WHO's PHI operations are underpinned by the International Health Regulations (2005), which require that countries strengthen surveillance efforts, and assess, notify and verify events that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). PHI activities at WHO are conducted systematically at WHO's headquarters and all six regional offices continuously, throughout every day of the year. We describe four interlinked steps; detection, verification, risk assessment, and reporting and dissemination. For PHI operations, a diverse and interdisciplinary workforce is needed. Overall, PHI is a key feature of the global health architecture and will only become more prominent as the world faces increasing public health threats.

[Horizon scanning in preparation for future health threats: a pilot exercise conducted by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance in 2014]. / La veille prospective, une démarche de préparation aux futures menaces de la santé publique : exercice mené à l'Institut de veille sanitaire en 2014.

Background: Health surveillance is a reactive process, with no real hindsight for dealing with signals and alerts. It may fail to detect more radical changes with a major medium-term or long-term impact on public health. To increase proactivity, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance has opted for a prospective monitoring approach.Methods: Several steps were necessary: 1) Identification of public health determinants. 2) Identification of key variables based on a combination of determinants. Variables were classified into three groups (health event trigger factors, dissemination factors and response factors) and were submitted to future development assumptions. 3) Identification, in each of the three groups, of micro-scenarios derived from variable trends. 4) Identification of macro-scenarios, each built from the three micro-scenarios for each of the three groups. 5) Identification of issues for the future of public health.Results: The exercise identified 22 key variables, 17 micro-scenarios and 5 macro-scenarios. The topics retained relate to issues on social and territorial health inequalities, health burden, individual and collective responsibilities in terms of health, ethical aspects, emerging phenomena, 'Big data', data mining, new health technologies, interlocking of analysis scales.Conclusions: The approach presented here guides the programming of activities of a health safety agency, particularly for monitoring and surveillance. By describing possible future scenarios, health surveillance can help decision-makers to influence the context towards one or more favourable futures.

Retrospective analysis of the cholera cases imported to France from 1973 to 2005.

BACKGROUND: The manners of traveling and travelers' vulnerability to infection are changing: increasing numbers of travelers, travels at the extreme ages of life, "backpacker" tourism in close contact with local populations. What is the epidemiologic situation and what are the trends of imported cholera to Metropolitan France? METHOD: A descriptive retrospective study was undertaken on all the confirmed cases of cholera imported to France, and notified from January 1, 1973, to December 31, 2005, using compulsory notification data from local health departments and information from the National Reference Centre. RESULTS: A total of 129 imported cases of cholera were notified between 1973 and 2005 (3.9 cases/y on average). The geographical sources of infection have changed with time: in the 1980s, 94% of the patients were infected in Maghreb (Morocco and Algeria) but none were in 2000. On the other hand, Asia and West Africa progressively emerged and now predominate. In spite of certain poorly informed data and possible underdetection, the number of cases of importation appears to be low and falling. CONCLUSIONS: The patient profile seems to have evolved and increasingly concerns people at the extreme ages of life, living elsewhere than the principal basins of immigration in France, and diagnosis is increasingly made in nonteaching hospitals. The lessons likely to help clinicians will be discussed.