Disease surveillance for purposes of detection and control of communicable disease outbreaks has historically been one of the most effective activities of public health and continues to be a universal function of state and local health departments. The public health system depends upon physicians, hospitals, laboratories and other health care providers to report those diseases identified as having public health significance. The concern about possible bioterrorist acts has highlighted the importance of timely and complete disease reporting. The most harmful such act would be one involving the unannounced release of an infectious organism into the population, relying upon early detection by the disease surveillance system to minimize the consequences of the outbreak. The toll free service has been added to make disease reporting more convenient and efficient for those health care providers upon which the system relies, ultimately resulting in a more effective surveillance system.
Providers can call the same toll-free telephone number any time of the day or night.
During workdays, a menu will allow choice of the appropriate program on the basis of the type of disease being reported. During nights, weekends, and holidays, the caller will be given the option to directly contact the on-call epidemiologist by pager. These programs receive reports of the respective diseases and initiate indicated investigation and control measures. A fifth program, called Epidemiologic Services, receives reports of and investigates all other diseases and outbreaks and responds to communicable disease emergency calls. Drug susceptibility testing was performed on 74 M. tuberculosis isolates from new patients or new isolates from old patients during drug therapy to monitor for the development of drug resistance.