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Reporting Data for Arbovirus Surveys

The objectives of the national West Nile virus (WNV) surveillance system include:

• To monitor the geographic and temporal spread of WNV over the eastern and southern United States.

• To further develop national public health strategies for WNV surveillance, prevention, and control.

• To develop a more complete regional picture of the geographic distribution and incidence of the other clinically important arboviruses in the eastern and southern United States.

• To provide national and regional information to public health officials, elected government officials, and the public.

• To evaluate the use of cooperative agreement funds and the need for additional resources.

Categories of Data to be Collected:

For each of the five surveillance subsystems (veterinary, sentinel chicken, avian morbidity/mortality, mosquito, and human), the national surveillance system will focus on the collection of two general categories of data:

• "Denominator" data

Definition: Weekly totals of new individuals or groups of individuals reported to, sampled by, or tested by a state’s WNV surveillance system, by county (or similar jurisdiction).

• "Numerator" data

Definition: More detailed information on individual mosquito pools, sentinel flocks, dead birds, and ill humans, horses, or other species with confirmed or suspected WNV infections, as determined by laboratory-confirmatory, -probable, or -equivocal test results.