common source outbreak

(noun)

a type of epidemic outbreak where the affected individuals had an exposure to a common agent.

Related Terms

  • pandemic
  • propagated outbreak

Examples of common source outbreak in the following topics:

  • Occurrence of a Disease

    • Develop a hypothesis (if there appears to be a cause for the outbreak).
    • There are several outbreak patterns that can be useful in identifying the transmission method or source and predicting the future rate of infection.
    • Common source – All victims acquire the infection from the same source (e.g. a contaminated water supply).
    • Continuous source – Common source outbreak where the exposure occurs over multiple incubation periods.
    • Point source – Common source outbreak where the exposure occurs in less than one incubation period.
  • Disease Reservoirs and Epidemics

    • There are two types of epidemic outbreaks: (1) In a common source outbreak, the affected individuals had an exposure to a common agent.
    • If the exposure is singular and all of the affected individuals develop the disease over a single exposure and incubation course, it can be termed a point-source outbreak.
    • Many epidemics will have characteristics of both common source and propagated outbreaks.
    • For example, secondary person-to-person spread may occur after a common source exposure or environmental vectors may spread a zoonotic disease agent.
    • Give examples of disease reservoirs and distinguish between common source and propagated outbreaks
  • Legionellosis

    • In the 1970s, the CDC investigated a large outbreak of legionellosis at Baptist Hospital that was spread through its air conditioner.
    • Common sources of Legionella include swimming pools, cooling towers, hot-water systems such as spas, fountains, freshwater ponds and creeks.
    • As seen, the major source for Legionella bacteria is infected water.
  • Chikungunya Fever

    • Both Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus have been implicated in large outbreaks of CHIKV.
    • Common laboratory tests for chikungunya include RT-PCR, virus isolation, and serological tests.
    • Human infections in Africa have been at relatively low levels for a number of years, but in 1999-2000 there was a large outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in 2007 there was an outbreak in Gabon.
    • Starting in February 2005, a major outbreak occurred in islands of the Indian Ocean.
    • A large outbreak of chikungunya in India occurred in 2006 and 2007.
  • Finding Patient Zero and Tracking Diseases

    • The index case may indicate the source of the disease, the possible spread, and which reservoir holds the disease in-between outbreaks.
    • The index case is the first patient that indicates the existence of an outbreak.
    • He was vilified for several years as a "mass spreader" of HIV, and seen as the original source of the HIV epidemic among homosexual men.
    • In the eboloa outbreak of 2014, the Patient Zero was identified as a two year-old boy in Guinea who died on Dec. 2, 2013 of Ebolavirus during the fruitbat migration.
  • Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases

    • The last infected human case of the outbreak occurred in June 2003, and there was a laboratory-induced infection case in 2004.
    • During the outbreak, the fatality of SARS was less than 1% for people aged 24 or younger, 6% for those 25 to 44, 15% for those 45 to 64, and more than 50% for those over 65.
    • The most common symptoms are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headache (often severe), coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort.
    • Although it is often confused with other influenza-like illnesses, especially the common cold, influenza is a more severe disease caused by a different type of virus.
    • However, there was an outbreak in Algeria in 1994, with cases of WNV-caused encephalitis, and the first large outbreak in Romania in 1996, with a high number of cases with neuroinvasive disease.
  • DNA Analysis Using Genetic Probes and PCR

    • Genotyping of pathogenic isolates provides valuable support during investigations of suspected outbreaks and when tracing infectious diseases.
    • It is well established that genotyping of pathogenic isolates provides valuable support for the investigation of suspected outbreaks, the detection of unsuspected transmission, the tracing of infectious agents within a community, and the identification of possible sources of infection for newly diagnosed cases.
  • Current Epidemics

    • Epidemiologists often consider the term outbreak to be synonymous to epidemic, but the general public typically perceives outbreaks to be more local and less serious than epidemics.
    • A few cases of a very rare disease may be classified as an epidemic, while many cases of a common disease (such as the common cold) would not.
    • The most common symptoms are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headache (often severe), coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort.
    • The World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak to be a pandemic level 6 on 11 June 2009.
    • However, the WHO's declaration of a pandemic level 6 was an indication of spread, not severity; the strain actually having a lower mortality rate than common flu outbreaks.
  • Viral Genomes in Nature

    • The host range of some bacteriophages is limited to a single strain of bacteria and they can be used to trace the source of outbreaks of infections by a method called phage typing.
    • It is thought that viruses played a central role in the early evolution, before the diversification of bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes and at the time of the last universal common ancestor of life on earth.
  • Emerging Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers

    • A recent study using deep sequencing, discovered a novel rhabdovirus (Bas-Congo virus, or BASV) associated with a 2009 outbreak of three human cases of acute hemorrhagic fever in Mangala village, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa.
    • Although the source of the virus remains unclear, the study findings suggest that BASV may be spread by human-to-human contact and is an emerging pathogen associated with acute hemorrhagic fever in Africa .
Subjects
  • Accounting
  • Algebra
  • Art History
  • Biology
  • Business
  • Calculus
  • Chemistry
  • Communications
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Microbiology
  • Physics
  • Physiology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Statistics
  • U.S. History
  • World History
  • Writing

Except where noted, content and user contributions on this site are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 with attribution required.