Case based measles surveillance performance in 2010, littoral region of Cameroon

Abstract

The Littoral region of Cameroon met most of its routine immunization and surveillance objectives in 2010 but has not reiterated such a performance since then. We describe the case-based measles surveillance performance of 2010 by person, place, time and determine measles surveillance system delays. Descriptive statistics were performed using Epi Info 3.5.3. There were 130 suspected measles cases investigated by 17 (89.5%) health districts, 83 (64%) males and 99 (76%) ≤5 years. At least 4 cases were investigated per month with a peak of 23 cases in June. About 67 (51.5%) patients visited a hospital more than 48 h after disease onset, 34 (26.2%) health facilities informed the district service late after receiving a suspected case and 65 (50%) samples got to the reference laboratory more than 24 hours after reception by the specimen collection centre. More than 2 discarded measles/100,000 population were investigated but with health facilities, specimen collection centre and patients’ ability to seek healthcare delays. All specimens got to the reference laboratory within 72 h. Patients’ health seeking behavior need to be improved and personnel involved in surveillance sensitized on timeliness.

Poor quality data challenges conclusion and decision making: timely analysis of measles confirmed and suspected cases line list in Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region, Ethiopia

“…Most epidemiological analysis of measles surveillance data also showed that the status of more than half of cases was unvaccinated [ 17 – 21 ]. The proportion of vaccinated cases in this study was found to be higher (61.9%) than that of epidemiological analysis of measles surveillance data done in Cameron [ 13 ], Iran [ 22 ], Iraq [ 21 ] and Italy [ 18 ] that showed 49.2%, 20%, 18% and 5.5% of cases were vaccinated respectively. At the time of outbreak, it was concluded that outbreak was due to accumulation of susceptible population.…”

“…In this study, median (delay time in days) interval between rash onset and case seen in health facilities seeking health care was 2.0 (IQR 1.0, 3.0). About two fifth cases, 846 (39.7%), visited health facilities within 48 h of onset of clinical sign and symptoms (Table 3 ) which was lower than that of Cameroon which reported 48.5% of cases visited within 48 h of onset of clinical sign and symptoms [ 13 ].…”

“…A total of 2132 sample was selected using simple random sampling from suspected and confirmed measles cases reported to SNNPR health bureau from July 2013 to January 2014. The sample size was calculated using single population formula assuming proportion of cases vaccinated P = 0.492 [ 13 ], Zα/ 2 = 1.96 reliability coefficient for 95% confidence interval for normal distribution, margin of error d = 0.03 and design effect of 2 considering vaccination coverage variability across the region. Cases selected with incomplete and/or invalid record were replaced with next case with complete information.…”