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Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases among Chinese Medicine Practitioners (CMPs)

Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases among Chinese Medicine Practitioners (CMPs)

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health (DH) has established several surveillance systems in Hong Kong to monitor communicable disease activity at the community and public and private healthcare facilities.  With the participation of different partners, CHP will have a more comprehensive picture of the situation of communicable diseases.  The sentinel surveillance system based at CMP clinics is one of the surveillance systems.

This weekly update outlines the data provided by CMPs participating in the sentinel surveillance of infectious diseases. This update aims at informing the public of community-wide trends of infectious disease based on inference from the collected data, and does not represent the situation at any particular clinic or geographic area.

Methodology:

  1. Sentinel CMPs at selected clinics record the total number of consultations and those fulfilling the case definition of disease conditions under surveillance. Records are sent to CHP on a weekly basis.
  2. Disease conditions under surveillance by sentinel CMPs include:
    - Influenza-like illness (ILI)
    - Acute diarrhoeal diseases (ADD)
  3. The CHP collects and collates data from all sentinel clinics weekly. The weekly consultation rate for each disease is generated by dividing the sum of cases reported by the CMPs by their sum of total number of consultations in the week.

I. Weekly Overview

Week 51 (15/12 – 21/12)
Latest data reported by sentinel CMP clinics showed that:
- the consultation rate for acute diarrhoeal disease was at baseline level;
- the consultation rate for influenza-like illness was at baseline level.

Year 2024
 Week 51 Week 50 Week 49 Week 48
Period
 15/12 - 21/12 8/12 - 14/12 1/12 - 7/12 24/11 - 30/11
Number of sentinel CM clinics
 27 29 29 29
Influenza-like illness
Weekly consultation rates
(per 1000)		 0.82 0.83 0.94 0.86
Acute diarrhoeal diseases
Weekly consultation rates
(per 1000)		 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.03

Remarks: The CHP of DH monitors the overall activity of common infectious diseases through a series of surveillance systems. The latest surveillance data showed that the overall influenza activity remained low. The activity of acute gastroenteritis was at baseline level.

II. Surveillance of Influenza-like Illness (ILI)

Weekly chart for surveillance of influenza-like illness in sentinel CMP, 2023-2024. The consultation rate of influenza-like illness in week 51 was at baseline level.

III. Surveillance of Acute Diarrhoeal Diseases (ADD)

Weekly chart for surveillance of acute diarrhoeal diseases in sentinel CMP, 2023-2024. The consultation rate of acute diarrhoeal diseases in week 51 was at baseline level.