Hospital-Based Surveillance: An Effective Tool for Infectious Disease Control

Objectives: (1) To determine the profile of reported infectious diseases. (2) To analyze the reported infectious diseases with reference to certain factors. (3) To evaluate the functionality of the notification system. Methodology: The hospital record-based study was carried out at a tertiary care hospital in Goa. The “Malaria, Dengue, Encephalitis Notification Reports” for a period of 18 months (Jan 2016–Jun 2017) were scrutinized. Data was entered in excel and analyzed in SPSS version 22. Results: A total of 2360 cases were recorded as per reports. 2043 (86.5%) of these were cases of malaria, 225 (9.6%) dengue, 55 (2.3%) encephalitis, 37 (1.6%) leptospirosis, and zero cases of chikungunya. Among the malaria cases, majority of the cases notified were plasmodium vivax-type. There were a total of 30 deaths reported, majority being due to leptospirosis 7 (23%) and encephalitis 7 (23%). The highest case fatality rate of 22 was due to cerebral malaria. Only 48 out of 346 (14%) of the reports were duly complete. Incorrect notification was seen in 2% of the reports. Many a times (25%), the reports were not sent on a daily basis. Conclusion: The hospital-based surveillance is an effective notification system for cases reporting to the hospitals. It is a cost-effective method of surveillance. If the problems of inconsistency, incompleteness, untimely reporting, etc., are solved, it has potential to revolutionize by timely detection and control measures on impending disease outbreaks.