Reporting Outbreaks of Human Diseases

Abstract

Traditionally, epidemiological data on human diseases has been collected in countries from the peripheral health services -- health post or doctor’s office -- in a more or less organized fashion, transmitted up through district, provincial and regional administrative levels to the central government health office, and compiled and printed there for distribution through the post office. The process usually took so long that the results were of purely historical interest, and of no use for control or prevention of current outbreaks. The spread of telegraph and telephone networks, and later of fax machines, improved the situation somewhat, but there were still long delays.