Assessment of epidemiology capacity in state health departments - United States, 2013.

Since 2001, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) periodically has conducted a standardized national assessment of state health departments' core epidemiology capacity (1-4). During August-September 2013, CSTE sent a web-based questionnaire to state epidemiologists in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The questionnaire inquired into workforce capacity and technology advancements to support public health surveillance.

Assessment of varicella surveillance and outbreak control practices - United States, 2012.

Case-based varicella (chickenpox) surveillance is important for monitoring the impact of the varicella vaccination program. In 2002, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) recommended that all states move toward case-based varicella surveillance by 2005; in 2003, varicella was made nationally notifiable. To ease the transition to case-based reporting, CSTE and CDC recommended starting with sentinel site or outbreak surveillance and then moving to statewide case-based surveillance when feasible.

Laboratory evidence of norwalk virus contamination on the hands of infected individuals.

Human norovirus (NoV) outbreak investigations suggest that the hands of infected individuals play an important role in NoV transmission. However, there is no experimental evidence documenting the likelihood and degree of NoV contamination on hands. As part of a clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of high-pressure processing for Norwalk virus (NV) inactivation in oysters, 159 hand rinse samples were collected from 6 infected and 6 uninfected subjects.