Disease+Surveillance+Explanation

Current disease surveillance efforts have failed in Africa has failed because of a lack of commitment of resources and infrastructure. Disease surveillance is necessary in order to predict disease outbreaks, gain more information on diseases, detect anomalies that may indicate the use of biological weapons. Further evidence suggests that disease surveillance is instrumental in identifying and detecting genocide because public health is often targeted as a war strategy. The CDC defines disease surveillance as “using health-related data that precede diagnosis and signal a sufficient probability of a case or an outbreak to warrant further public health response.” Using a normal influenza outbreak as an example, once the outbreak begins to affect the population, some people may call in sick for work/school, others may visit their drug store and purchase medicine over the counter, others will visit their doctor's office and other's may have symptoms severe enough that they call the emergency telephone number or go to an emergency room. Syndromic surveillance systems monitor data from school absenteeism logs, emergency call systems, hospitals' over-the-counter drug sale records, Internet searches, and other data sources to detect unusual patterns. When a spike in activity is seen in any of the monitored systems disease epidemiologists and public health professionals are alerted that may be an issue. The most effective syndromic surveillance systems automatically monitor these systems in real-time, do not require individuals to enter separate information (secondary data entry), include advanced analytical tools, aggregate data from multiple systems, across geo-political boundaries and include an automated alerting process. In late 1999, West Nile fever, which is caused by a mosquito-vectored virus, was identified in New York City during an epidemic involving 62 human cases and 7 fatalities. The virus subsequently gained ecological establishment and now has been identified throughout the eastern United States. The appearance of West Nile virus in a human community, like many insect-vectored pathogens, may be responsive to modulation by weather and climate variations. The appearance of an infectious disease in a community can be directly applied to the development of an RS infectious disease surveillance system. Clear identification of how climate modulation effects this process is key. Ground verification of RS data through field meteorological studies is an additional requirement, which implies rapidly accessible, accurate, and reliable high resolution meteorological data. The need for access to real-time streaming meteorological data will become an increasingly important requirement for ground verification, as RS systems may be tested in an acute epidemic response scenario. Additionally, satellites can be used to monitor population movement. 4. Uniqueness Tricks
 * So what exactly is disease surveillance?**
 * Satellite Surveillance**
 * Top 5 reasons to run this aff**
 * 1) Big Stick Aff
 * 2) Plethora of //GOOD// Literature
 * 3) Diverse Advantage Area
 * 5. It’s true.**
 * Just to show you how good the literature is…**

“There are roughly 54 million deaths annually worldwide from infectious diseases. Half of these disease occur in Sub-Saharan Africa” “Global Surveillance is therefore crucial in responding to and containing microbial threats isolated outbreaks develop into…world wide epidemics” “satellite sensing….to track the geographic distribution and transport of specific pathogens…will make it possible to analyze the evolution and distribution of microbes and their relationship to ecological niches and may improve our ability to quantify the disease impacts of climatic and ecological changes” “the biological materials for potentially deadly attacks are widespread….if weaponized could be enormous loss of life…there is no shortage of groups with motive…” “of current extinction risks, the most severe is bioterrorism…” “better medical surveillance tools…are needed to help protect against attacks from terrorist using biological weapons. National Health systems present an enormous untapped resource for intelligence gathering and the protection of national security”

“the U.S.must lead the effort on an international level to define international standards..so that we will have more control over where the materials of concern are, who has access to them, and how they controlled, and how they are stored and transferred. It will not be enough to shore up American public health capabilities….we must assist others to develop capabilities for disease monitoring surveillance or else leave outselves vulnerable to the possible exposure to dangerous deases.”