A Fully Integrated Real-Time Detection, Diagnosis, and Control of Community Diarrheal Disease Clusters and Outbreaks (the INTEGRATE Project): Protocol for an Enhanced Surveillance System.

Background: Diarrheal disease, which affects 1 in 4 people in the United Kingdom annually, is the most common cause of outbreaks in community and health care settings. Traditional surveillance methods tend to detect point-source outbreaks of diarrhea and vomiting; they are less effective at identifying low-level and intermittent food supply contamination. Furthermore, it can take up to 9 weeks for infections to be confirmed, reducing slow-burn outbreak recognition, potentially impacting hundreds or thousands of people over wide geographical areas.