Timeliness of Measles Laboratory Reporting and Factors Associated with Delays, Zhejiang Province, China, 2009-2015

A Call for epidemic assessment questionnaire

Epidemic outbreaks are a part of population and public health. The epidemiological triad of host, agent and environment are changing in their interaction with each other in the recent years. As health care professionals lack training and time to assess risk factors of epidemic, important information about epidemic source identification may be missed. Newer biological and chemical agents are continually being added in our environment with potential to cause acute or subacute epidemic of diseases. These factors should motivate us to draft and implement an accessible universal epidemic outbreak questionnaire with a good online database for early epidemic source identification. We have tried to formulate a universal questionnaire that, if needed may be used by providers if they suspect unusual occurrence of cluster of cases.