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BackgroundGreat progress is being made toward the goal of elimination as a public health problem for neglected tropical diseases such as leprosy, human African trypanosomiasis, Buruli ulcer, and visceral leishmaniasis, which relies on intensified disease management and case finding. However, strategies for maintaining this goal are still under discussion. Passive surveillance is a core pillar of a long-term, sustainable surveillance program.MethodsWe use a generic model of disease transmission with slow epidemic growth rates and cases detected through severe symptoms and passive detection to evaluate under what circumstances passive detection alone can keep transmission under control.ResultsReducing the period of infectiousness due to decreasing time to treatment has a small effect on reducing transmission. Therefore, to prevent resurgence, passive surveillance needs to be very efficient. For some diseases, the treatment time and level of passive detection needed to prevent resurgence is unlikely to be obtainable.ConclusionsThe success of a passive surveillance program crucially depends on what proportion of cases are detected, how much of their infectious period is reduced, and the underlying reproduction number of the disease. Modeling suggests that relying on passive detection alone is unlikely to be enough to maintain elimination goals.

Original publication

DOI

10.1093/cid/ciae097

Type

Journal article

Journal

Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Publication Date

04/2024

Volume

78

Pages

S169 - S174

Addresses

Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford.

Keywords

Humans, Population Surveillance, Public Health, Tropical Medicine, Neglected Diseases, Disease Eradication