[Sentinel surveillance of diarrhea in Ksar-Hellal (Tunisia)]. / Surveillance sentinelle de la diarrhée à Ksar-Hellal (Tunisie).

BACKGROUND: In order to simplify the national data collection related to diarrhea, a sentinel surveillance system was implemented in the Ksar-Hellal district (Tunisia). POPULATION AND METHODS: This system was based on 461 cases of diarrhea collected from health centers and hospitals between June 1994 and December 1995. RESULTS: The collected information confirmed the previous data provided by the national system: frequency of diarrhea in health centers (4.14%), occurrence of the disease especially in the summer period, rate of hospitalization (10%) and low proportion of severe dehydration. The system also gave some new information related to the proportion of persistent diarrhea (7.1%), the low frequency of malnutrition (11%) and the etiology. CONCLUSION: The sentinel surveillance system validates information previously provided by the National Surveillance System. It also gave new information not obtained by the classical surveillance system.