News Archives |
Volume 4 No 33; 20 August 2010
Health Protection 2010
Health Protection Agency scientists and other public health experts from a wide range of disciplines will present papers at the Health Protection 2010 conference and exhibition being held at Warwick University on 14 and 15 September, organised by the Health Protection Agency [1].
The conference programme reflects the wide scope of Agency’s responsibilities, encompassing frontline response to emergencies with public health implications (such as chemical spillages, infectious disease outbreaks, etc) to purely scientific activities such as the public health epidemiology and laboratory service functions.
More than a hundred papers will be presented during five parallel streams of presentations over two days. The first day comprises four one-day conferences on: public health epidemiology; hepatitis and other blood-borne infections; food-borne infections; and vaccines.
Five further one-day conferences on the second day cover: tuberculosis; healthcare-associated infections; environmental public health; the Agency’s emergency response activities; and the implications of new genetic sequencing technological developments for health protection.
The operational and other challenges presented by a number of high-profile infectious disease outbreaks that occurred during the past year are the subject two of the first day’s conference streams (public health epidemiology and food-borne infections); these include outbreaks of gastro-enteric infections caused by food-borne pathogens in a variety of settings (eg salmonella in schools and nurseries, general enteric disease outbreaks associated with particular retail food outlets) or associated with a range of foodstuffs (eg oysters and other shellfish). A number of presentations in both these conference streams will describe responses to and investigations into a number of outbreaks at agricultural settings (eg Q fever on a Dutch dairy farm and E. coli O157 and cryptosporidiosis on petting farms in the UK). The work of the Agency’s Food, Water and Environmental Microbiology Network in developing national strategy for responding to outbreaks in healthcare settings is also covered in the food-borne infections conference.
Two half-day events – concerned with the HPA’s contribution to the UK frontline response to the 2009 swine flu pandemic in the UK and HPA activities related to preparedness for chemical, biological and radiation/nuclear (CBRN) emergencies in the UK – compete the first day’s programme.
A challenge for the Agency during the past year has been prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections; a second-day conference stream is largely concerned with two particular aspects: significant recent rises in norovirus activity and the emerging international problem of gram-negative pathogens.
The environmental public health conference is jointly organised with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and includes papers on the potential public health implications of climate change and other environmental phenomena. The potential impacts on human health of climate change are the subject of the plenary Turnberg Lecture (“Climate change: reducing the risks to health in an uncertain future”), to be given by professor Sir Andy Haines, director, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Reference
1. Health Protection 2010 conference website: http://www.hpa-events.org.uk/hpa/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=42158&eventID=93&eventID=93.
Update to UK immunisation handbook
The Department of Health’s on-line handbook of immunisation practice and procedures in the UK [1], Immunisation against infectious disease (“the green book”), has been updated to take account of recent developments relating to influenza, including the 2009 pandemic. Most recently, this includes the CMO-announced arrangements [2, 3] for the seasonal influenza vaccination programme for the forthcoming (winter) 2010/11 season, starting September/October 2010.
The updated chapter 19 [4] provides guidance on the administration of influenza vaccine programme (target groups, dosages, contraindications, precautions, adverse reactions, vaccine supplies, etc); also a general introduction to history and epidemiology of the disease. It replaces both the previous influenza chapter, last updated on 29 October 2009, and the pandemic influenza A (H1N1)v chapter published on 16 February 2010.
References
1. Department of Health. Immunisation against infectious disease, 2006. Available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Healthprotection/Immunisation/Greenbook/DH_4097254.
2. Department of Health. PL CMO (2010)1, PL CNO (2010)1, PL CPHO (2010)1: The influenza immunisation programme 2010/11.
3. Seasonal influenza: immunisation programme for 2010/11, HPR 4(22).
3. Immunisation against infectious disease: chapter 19: influenza, 19 August 2010. Downloadable at:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/dr_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/
digitalasset/dh_118770.pdf (194k PDF).