Fully integrated, real-time detection, diagnosis and control of community diarrhoeal disease clusters and outbreaks

Seventeen million people suffer a diarrhoeal disease every year. These diseases often lead to outbreaks of infections, like norovirus - now among the costliest infectious burdens on the NHS. The sooner diseases are detected, the sooner they can be brought under control - limiting their health and financial impact. It is known from outbreaks of Escherichia coli O104 in Germany and O157 at Godstone Farm in Surrey that surveillance is key to detection; but with fewer people now consulting their GP over diarrhoea, outbreaks are increasingly difficult to detect using traditional methods. This hides the true burden of disease. Professor Sarah O’Brien and her collaborators will use data from multiple sources to scout for infection in the community, take samples and analyse them, using modern technology to detect organisms. The researchers will analyse the DNA of microbes to discover which family of organisms they belong to and how they are evolving. Since many diarrhoeal diseases can pass between humans and animals the project team will develop and integrate veterinary and medical surveillance. The ultimate goal is an integrated real-time, surveillance/diagnosis/investigation system - centred on the patient - that detects community outbreaks sooner, enables Health Protection professionals and Environmental Health Officers to intervene quickly and thus lessen short- and long-term harm