Eurosurveillance
Volume 21, Issue 17, 28 April 2016
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/Public/Articles/Archives.aspx?PublicationId=11678
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Review articles
Best practices in ranking communicable disease threats: a literature review, 2015
by EC O’Brien, R Taft, K Geary, M Ciotti, JE Suk
The threat of serious, cross-border communicable disease outbreaks in Europe poses a significant challenge to public health and emergency preparedness because the relative likelihood of these threats and the pathogens involved are constantly shifting in response to a range of changing disease drivers. To inform strategic planning by enabling effective resource allocation to manage the consequences of communicable disease outbreaks, it is useful to be able to rank and prioritise pathogens. This paper reports on a literature review which identifies and evaluates the range of methods used for risk ranking. Searches were performed across biomedical and grey literature databases, supplemented by reference harvesting and citation tracking. Studies were selected using transparent inclusion criteria and underwent quality appraisal using a bespoke checklist based on the AGREE II criteria. Seventeen studies were included in the review, covering five methodologies. A narrative analysis of the selected studies suggests that no single methodology was superior. However, many of the methods shared common components, around which a ‘best-practice’ framework was formulated. This approach is intended to help inform decision makers’ choice of an appropriate risk-ranking study design.
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News
World Health Organization announces European Region malaria free
On 20 April 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the WHO European Region, which comprises 53 countries, is the first of the WHO regions to have interrupted the indigenous transmission of malaria [1].
In 2005, the WHO European Regional Office for Europe adopted the Tashkent Declaration, ‘The Move from Malaria Control to Elimination’ [2] which paved the way for a new malaria elimination strategy, the ‘Regional Strategy: From Malaria Control to Elimination in the WHO European Region 2006-2015’ [3]. The Regional Strategy set out milestones for the countries of the WHO European Region to eliminate malaria. Between 1995 and 2015, the number of indigenous malaria cases went from around 90,000 to zero in the European Region.
In July 2016, the WHO will hold its first meeting on the prevention of the re-introduction of malaria into the WHO European Region. According to the WHO, the meeting will focus on prevention through (i) sustained political commitment, (ii) strong vigilance to test and treat all malaria cases promptly, (iii) understanding how malaria transmission could be reintroduced and the risk it poses; and (iv) immediate action if local malaria transmission resumes.