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Declared epidemics

Declared epidemics Catalonia. 2008
Outbreaks Affected Hospitalised Deaths
Food poisoning 101 1,774 36 0
Acute gastroenteritis 44 935 5 1
Viral hepatitis 30 114 8 0
Legionella 39 173 100 0
Pulmonary tuberculosis 88 217 111 0
Chemical poisoning 6 98 7 1
Pertussis 47 130 24 0
Sarna 5 29 0 0
Stevens infectious 10 148 0 0
Ringworm 5 27 0 0
Scarlet 12 111 0 0
Rubella 3 8 0 0
Brucellosis 1 3 0 0
Pneumonia 3 14 5 0
Meningococcal disease 1 2 2 0
Hand-foot-mouth syndrome 3 23 0 0
Viral rash 1 5 0 0
Conjunctivitis 5 114 0 0
Mumps 12 41 4 0
Dermatitis 4 56 0 0
Candidiasis 1 20 0 0
Irritant Syndrome 3 20 0 0
Chickenpox 4 62 1 0
Infectious Mononucleosis 2 6 1 0
Lymphogranuloma venerated 2 22 0 0
Syphilis 1 2 0 0
Malaria 3 8 6 0
Amebiasis 1 2 0 0
Giardiasis 1 3 0 0
Semicircular Lipoatrophy 13 125 0 0
Vesicular stomatitis 2 47 0 0
MRSA Infection 4 17 0 0
Total 457 4,356 310 2
Source: Departament de Salut. Agència de Salut Pública de Catalunya. Subdirecció General de Vigilància i Resposta a Emergències de Salut Pública.

Last update: October 31, 2012.

Methodological note

Definition of concepts

Epidemic
Manifestation in a collective or geographical zone of a number of cases of a certain disease which clearly exceeds the normal expected incidence of the same.

Methodological aspects

The Obligatory Notifiable Diseases system (MDO) is based on the notification doctors do when they suspect of the existence of any of the diseases included in the MDO list. One of the main functions of the MDO is the epidemiological survilliance of the diseases and epidemic outbreaks of any etiology that are meant to be primary controled in Catalonia.

In 1996, when publishing the Royal Decree for the creation of the Epidemiological Survilliance Net, the Workgroup for the Epidemiological Survilliance of the Interterritorial Board of the National Health System agreed case definitions of the diseases to be notified to distinguish the notified cases, the confirmed ones and those not confirmed evenly in whole Spain.

The Emergency Service for the Epidemiological Survilliance in Catalonia (SUVEC) started to work in 2001 to react in front of the diseases notifications declared urgent and the epidemic outbreaks of any etiology done by doctors of the medical assistence network in Catalonia in the afternoons and nights of every day of the week, on weekends and public holidays. SUVEC aims to detect early the diseases of urgent notification, the epidemic outbreaks of any etiology and other epidemiological alerts that happen in other Spanish regions and Europe when they affect the Catalan territory, and to react in front of them immediatly and properly to take the right survilliance actions as soon as posible in order to protect the population health and to avoid that alerts on health problems become social alarm.

As it is important to react promptly, this sort of incidents ar communicated when they are suspected to be, before to receive the laboratory confirmation. SUVEC acts together with all the medical assistence and public health networwork. It takes into account the protocols of the Departament de Salut and the best scientific evidence, and documents its actions through the corresponding reports.

Unavailable information is represented using the symbol ":". When the value is lower than that of the minimum unit to be able to estimate the statistical operation or if it effects statistical confidentiality, the symbol used is "..".