What to know
- Presentation Day/Time: Friday, April 25, 10:55 am–12:20 pm
- Presenter: Joe Silva, PhD, ScM, EIS officer assigned to the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Division of Bacterial Diseases
What did we do?
- To support timely public health recommendations, we assessed the potential for near real-time weekly emergency department (ED) visit data from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) to provide earlier awareness of increases in invasive group A Streptococcus (GAS) infections.
What did we find?
- During 2019–2022, 9,872 iGAS cases were observed in CDC's Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs).
- From NSSP, there were 13,212 ED visits for iGAS, 6,189,093 ED visits for pharyngitis, and 34,670 ED visits for scarlet fever in the same period.
- ED iGAS visits were correlated with ABCs iGAS cases and mirrored weekly fluctuations in incidence, including peaks during winter months.
- ABCs iGAS cases were also correlated with pharyngitis and scarlet fever ED visits.
- Correlation results were similar for all age groups and children.
Why does it matter?
- iGAS infections are associated with up to 20% mortality.
- In 2022, U.S. iGAS infections reached a 20-year high according to CDC's ABCs, an active, population-, and laboratory-based surveillance system that monitors invasive infections.
- Our assessment found that ED visits correlated well with ABCs iGAS cases, demonstrating NSSP's utility in providing rapid awareness of GAS disease activity, including for non-invasive GAS infections not tracked by ABCs.
- Early detection through NSSP may facilitate timely recommendations for healthcare providers, state and territorial health departments, and the public.
***This presentation has updated data that will be shared at the EIS Conference.
Abstract Category: Group A Strep