The difficulties of early detection for infectious disease outbreak in China:A qualitative investigation

Objective:To make intensified analysis upon the existing difficulties in early detection for the infectious diseases outbreak in China and put forward some effective measures to improve it.Methods:Field investigation and in-depth interview were applied in 23 interviewees from different-level CDC.Results:The study findings suggest that although the timeliness of outbreak detection has been improved since SARS epidemic in China,some problems still exist,such as:① lacking syndrome surveillance;② report quality of infectious disease should be improved;③ difficulties of identifying the cases at lower social economic status;④ a definite financial compensation mechanism for the operation of web-based report system is absent;⑤insufficient information exchange among different branches.Conclusion:Some effective measures must be taken including developing syndrome surveillance system;affording more education and training for related staff;increasing payout on surveillance and establishing an information exchange platform for early detection of disease outbreak.