An Integrated Mosquito Surveillance Module in New York State
Authors: Chang Hwa-Gan , Griffin Jacqueline , DiDonato Charlie , Tice Cori , Backenson Byron 
Published: May 2017

ObjectiveTo develop a mosquito surveillance module to collect mosquitoinformation testing for West Nile, East Equine Encephalitis (EEE)and Zika viruses using national standards. To provide a common setof data for local health departments (LHDs) and state users to reportand share information. To monitor the type of mosquito species thatcarry diseases.IntroductionThere were several stand-alone vector surveillance applicationsbeing used by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)to support the reporting of mosquito, bird, and mammal surveillanceand infection information implemented in early 2000s in responseto West Nile virus. In subsequent years, the Electronic ClinicalLaboratory Reporting System (ECLRS) and the CommunicableDisease Electronic Surveillance System (CDESS) were developedand integrated to be used for surveillance and investigations of humaninfectious diseases and management of outbreaks.An integrated vector surveillance system project was proposedto address the migration of the stand-alone vector surveillanceapplications into a streamlined, consolidated solution to supportoperational, management, and technical needs by using the nationalstandards with the existing resources and technical environment.MethodsA mosquito surveillance module was designed to link with CDESS,an electronic disease case reporting and investigation system, to allowLHDs to enter mosquito trap sites and mosquito pool informationobtained from those traps. The mosquito test results are automaticallytransmitted to ECLRS through public health lab Clinical LaboratoryInformation Management System (CLIMS) using ELR standards. Byutilizing these standards, the ECLRS was enhanced to add a new non-human specimen table and existing processes were used to obtainmosquito laboratory results and automatically transfer them to thesurveillance system the same way that human results are transferred.The new mosquito surveillance module also utilizes the existingCDESS reporting module, thereby allowing users the flexibility toquery and extract data of their choosing. The minimum infectionrate (MIR) report calculates the number of infected pools with anarbovirus divided by the total number of specimens tested*1000; atrap report shows number of mosquitoes trapped by species type,location and trap type; and a lab test result report shows the numberof pools that tested positive and the percentage of positive pools bydisease.ResultsThe mosquito surveillance module was rolled out in May 2016to all 57 LHDs. A non-human species lookup table was created toallow public health lab to report the test results using Health Levelseven (HL7) v 2.5.1 standards. As of August 31, 2016 there were4,545 pools tested. A total of 201 (4.4%) pools were positive for WestNile and the MIR was 1.2. There were no pools positive for EEEor Zika virus. Various reports have been created for monitoring thesurveillance of mosquitoes trapped and tested for mosquito-bornediseases.ConclusionsThe integration of mosquito surveillance module within CDESSallows LHDs and the State to monitor mosquito-borne disease activitymore efficiently. The module also increases NYDOH’s ability toprovide timely, accurate and consistent information to the local healthdepartments and healthcare practitioners regarding mosquito-bornediseases.