Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at Child Care Centres/Kindergartens(CCC/KG)
Weekly Update

This weekly update outlines the data provided by CCC/KG participating in the "Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at Child Care Centres/Kindergartens". 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 CCC/KG or geographic area.

I. Weekly Overview

Week 19 (7/5-11/5) Recent data reported by sentinel CCC/KGs showed that the activities of fever and hand, foot and mouth disease were at high level.

Year 2012 Week 19 Week 18 Week 17 Week 16 Surveillance period 7/5-11/5 30/4-4/5 23/4-27/4 16/4-20/4 Number of children (CCC/KG) under survelliance 24859(117) 24612(115) 23847(112) 24840(116) a) Surveillance of Symptoms Percentage of CCC/KG with children affected by fever 72.65 68.70 66.07 56.03 Percentage of CCC/KG with children affected by cough 58.97 69.57 57.14 45.69 Percentage of CCC/KG with children affected by diarrhoea 5.98 10.43 3.57 4.31 Percentage of CCC/KG with children affected by vomiting 9.40 7.83 8.04 6.03 b) Surveillance of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease Percentage of CCC/KG with HFMD cases 7.69 11.30 7.14 6.03 c) Surveillance of Absenteeism due to Sickness Average rate of absenteeism due to sickness 3.10 3.10 2.94 2.58

II) Surveillance of symptoms

1) Fever

Occurrence of fever in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

2) Cough

Occurrence of cough in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

3) Diarrhoea

Occurrence of diarrhoea in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

4) Vomiting

Occurrence of vomiting in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

III) Surveillance of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

HFMD in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

IV) Surveillance of Absenteeism due to Sickness

Absenteeism in sentinel CCC/KG, 2011-2012 Week 2012 2011

Methodology   1. On each operating day, sentinel CCC/KG record the number of absentees due to sickness. (Data is not collected on days when a CCC/KG is closed due to public holiday, bad weather or other reasons.) The total number of absentees due to sickness among all sentinel CCC/KG is divided against the total number of children in attendance to get the gross daily rate of absenteeism. The rates for each day of the week are then averaged to get the week's "Average rate of absenteeism due to sickness."   2. On each week, sentinel CCC/KG record the presence of cases of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD). CHP calculates the total number of CCC/KG with cases of HFMD, and based on the total number of CCC/KG submitting reports, works out the "Percentage of CCC/KG with cases of HFMD."   3. Every Wednesday, sentinel CCC/KG record the number of absentees who are showing symptoms of fever, cough, diarrhoea and vomiting. The numbers are reported to CHP at the end of the week. (Data is collected on the next operating day when a CCC/KG is closed due to public holiday, bad weather or other reasons.) Based on the submitted data, CHP works out the "Percentage of CCC/KG with children affected by symptom" for the week.