The benefits and limitations of sentinel surveillance data on gastroenteritis in epidemic investigation

ABSTRACT

Sentinel surveillance playes an important role in the early detection of disease outbreaks. In Jamaica, information is collected weekly on gastroenteritis (GE), fever, and measles. Recently, GE data has been divided into cases in under 5 year olds and over 5 year olds in order to increase the system's sensitivity towards detection of the introduction of cholera. Investigation of a recent epidemic of gastroenteritis at Cornwall Regional Hospital, Montego Bay, St. James Parish reinforced to us the importance of sentinel data collection for detection of outbreaks and illustrated the usefullness of age division of GE data, but also alerted us to the need to monitor the accuracy of case definitions for sentinel reports (AU)