Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases can involve large at risk populations and lead to a rapid increase in case numbers or case fatalities. With movement from one part of the earth to another so convenient and frequent in today's world, cross-country and cross-continent spread of emerging infectious diseases (EID) has become more frequent. If control efforts are not made more effective and the EID are not more recognized, then epidemics of any infectious disease unbeknownst to the public at large can readily spread locally, nationally and internationally.
Taiwan has experienced several outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, including stem encephalitis caused by enterovirus 71 (EV71) in 1998, dengue/dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) in Kaohsiung and Pingtung in 2001–2003, inter-hospital nosocomial spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and island-wide avian influenza H5N2 during the winter season of 2003–2004. In order to face these challenges, a hospital emergency department-based syndromic surveillance system (ED-SSS) was established in Taiwan using a team of multi-disciplinary experts monitoring 11 syndromes, including fever, respiratory, influenza-like illness, asthma, upper and lower gastro-intestinal, enterovirus-related infection syndrome, skin, neurological, and syndrome for severe illness or deaths, on a daily basis (Wu TS and King CC et al., 2008). Using ED-SSS, the scale of red-eye epidemic was minimized after public education through immediate notifying parents by cellular phone.
To maintain preparedness for the possibility of pandemic influenza, our research activities have been expanded to include virologic and serologic surveillance of live-bird market personnel and poultry workers for avian influenza and on-going investigation of daily meteorological factors associated with outbreaks of low and high pathogenic avian influenza viruses (Liu CM and King CC, 2007).
In conclusion, integrated surveillance plus evidence-based epidemiologic data can help formulate better public health policies and increase preparedness to meet the future challenges presented by emerging/re-emerging infectious diseases.