SU_PHE5015_W2_Project_Williams_S
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South University, Savannah *
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Health Science
Date
Jan 9, 2024
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docx
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5
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Understanding the Epi Curve: Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease
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The epi curve that was constructed above shows a total of 403 cases in this outbreak, over
the course of 41 days spanning from February 11, 2022- March 23,2022. This outbreak grew slowly with small peaks, but also had a spiked peak that occurred on March 10, 2022. Following the peak, the number of cases began to decline with only 16 confirmed cases on March 12, 2022,
and then continuously declining until there were 0 confirmed cases on March 23,2022. From the epi curve we see that most cases occurred in individuals ages between 10-20 years old with 150 cases in the outbreak, there were also 140 cases confirmed in persons ages above 20 years old, and 113 cases in individuals under 10 years old. The epi curve shows that the majority of the cases were from adolescent aged children and adults versus younger children under age 10, which is the more common population that is usually infected.
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Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is most common in young children under the age
of 5, but it can occur in other ages as well. Due to it being a viral infection, it can be spread in a multitude of common ways such as through coming in contact with an infected person, may be spread through feces, by touching contaminated shared surfaces, or through air droplets
(Guerra & Waseem, 2019). Being that there is no common source to contracting HFMD, the outbreak shown in the epi curve can be described as a propagated outbreak meaning that is spread from person to person through different ways. There are several small uniformed peaks in the curve, which may be due to different incubation periods that may have occurred in the outbreak. In this
outbreak the individuals could have gotten infected in numerous ways. However, the individuals who were reported during the peak may have had a common source of infection or were exposed
to the disease by the same infected individual who may have been in a shared space with individuals of all age groups that had been infected within the same incubation period. According
to the Center of Disease Control (CDC), individuals start experiencing symptoms 3-5 days after being infected and may last for 7-10 days
(CDC, 2019). Though an individual is most contagious
during their first week after being infected, they may still spread the disease weeks after they have not experienced any more symptoms with some people also being symptomatic. Based off the epi curve of the outbreak we can assume that there are multiple incubation periods. The incubation periods for the outbreak were 3-5 days before February 11, 2022(first case), 3-5 days before February 18,2022, 3-5 days before February 26, 2022, and 3-5 days before March 6, 2022. The incubation period may have changed following the peak due to increased efforts in prevention methods for the disease, which in turn lead to the decrease in prevalence and transmission.
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In order to investigate this outbreak, I would utilize this curve to possibly find the common mode of transmission that may have led to the highest occurrence of the disease on March 10
th
, 2022. Within the investigation of the outbreak, we may also be able to discover who or what may have caused the person in the initial case to become infected. In this outbreak it is important to investigate how the disease moves from person to person: by air, contact, feces, etc. While investigating we can also use surveillance of common places that infected persons may have been exposed, in order to develop possible case definitions, take interviews of the infected and possible infected, and determine transmission modes and any changes to the number of cases. Using the information that we may find in the investigation; we can determine the ways that this outbreak could have been prevented which would allow us to intervene and prevent any other cases that may occur following the outbreak in order to limit the future prevalence of the disease.
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References
CDC. (2019). Hand Foot and Mouth Disease
. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/hand-foot-mouth/about/signs-symptoms.html
Guerra, A. M., & Waseem, M. (2019, May 10). Hand Foot and Mouth Disease
. Nih.gov; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK431082/