Review of infectious diseases of public health important and the benefits of vaccinating medical & health practitioners and the subordinate staffs against the disease at a hospital setting

1. INFECTIOUS DISEASES OF PUBLIC HEALTH IMPORTANCE AND THE BENEFITS OF
VACCINATION AGAINST THE DISEASES-A CASE STUDY OF MEDICAL & HEALTH
PRACTITIONERS AND SUBORDINATE STAFF-TURKANA COUNTY
By: Stephen Olubulyera-Public Health Practitioner-Turkana County Government
~Ignorance is no match for a curious mind~
Linkedin: https://ke.linkedin.com/in/stephenolubulyera

2. INFECTIOUS DISEASES OF PUBLIC HEALTH IMPORTANCE AND THE BENEFITS OF
VACCINATION AGAINST THE DISEASES-A CASE STUDY OF MEDICAL & HEALTH
PRACTITIONERS AND SUBORDINATE STAFF-TURKANA COUNTY
The major functions of Public Health Department's Infectious Disease Surveillance Division
is to:
a) Monitors and tracks the incidence of reportable diseases and conditions.
b) Investigates outbreaks and acts to contain infectious diseases.
c) Provides vaccinations for children and adults, including flu and travel.
d) Investigates animal bites and exposures to prevent transmission of diseases to
humans, such as rabies, Lyme disease and the West Nile virus.
e) Provides screening, evaluation and treatment of patients with Tuberculosis.
f) Provides medications to public and private clinic patients at no charge.
There are some 70 infectious diseases/conditions that are reportable to the Public Health
Department-Epidemiology and disease surveillance division. The role of the surveillance
program is to protect the health of the public by interrupting the chain of communicable
disease transmission through active surveillance and prompt contact follow-up as
indicated. The public health goals focus on reducing illness, hospitalization, and death from
vaccine-preventable diseases and other infectious diseases; expanding surveillance is
crucial to those ends. Further efforts to improve disease surveillance will allow for earlier
detection of the emergence and spread of diseases. Increased surveillance will save lives by
allowing the maximum time possible for public health responses, including vaccine
production and development of evidence-based recommendations on disease prevention
and control. Surveillance enables rapid information sharing and facilitates the timely
identification of people in need of immediate treatment. Increasing laboratory capacity is
essential for these efforts.
However, there’s disregard in surveillance when it comes to the medical & health
practitioner and the subordinate staff; who is the first person who comes into contact with
a patient with an infectious antigen and handles the disinfection of infected surfaces and
garments, and disposal and management of hazardous infectious (hospital) waste
respectively. There is a false sense of protection or blanket cover due to availability of the
vaccines (not all) around the dispensaries/health facilities/hospitals and immortal illusion
that a medical & health practitioner can never be infected with a disease from a patient
since precaution is adhered with. However, there’s human error and sometimes
shortcoming of protective devices when it comes to adherence: for instant an elastic glove
cannot prevent a self-prick of the finger by a needle during administration of an injectable
drug. Nonetheless, there are post exposure prophylaxes to some of the diseases but not all,
especially the infectious ones. All possible disease prevention mechanism must be put in
place to protect the skilled personnel. Prevention is better than cure, how many
health/medical practitioners have been vaccinated against infectious diseases in Turkana
County??

3. Working in a hospital exposes the practitioners and subordinate staffs to various infectious
diseases which can easily be contracted and be even transmitted to the next patient. The
corrections population is susceptible to infectious diseases through exposure to blood and
other bodily fluids. Every medical & health practitioner and subordinate staff especially the
ones in-charge of disinfecting the infected areas, the infected garments and also the ones
in-charge of disposal and management of the hazardous, infectious, hospital waste in every
dispensary, health-facility, sub-county hospital and referral hospitals should be vaccinated
against infectious diseases. Some of the infectious diseases medical & health practitioners
and subordinate staffs should be vaccinated include:
a) Yellow Fever
b) Hepatitis A & B
c) Tetanus
d) Typhoid
e) Anthrax
f) Plague(short-term recommended for laboratory personnel)
g) Q fever
This is a prevention mechanism against case-to-case transmission to the skilled personnel:
the medical & health practitioners and the subordinate staff, whose skills are much
required during management of outbreaks or disease prevention and control. Sensitization
of the manifestation of various infectious diseases should be conducted through SMEs and
health promotion activities to medical & health practitioners and subordinate staff. This
gesture will ensure transmission of infectious diseases is averted since ever personnel
involved in handling of the case in the initial stages including the subordinate staff will
have at least an idea of the transmission avenues or media of the infectious disease thus
ensure personal protective devices are deployed to act as barriers. This will also ensure the
aspect of ‘quarantine’ of all the individuals who came into contact with the patient is
ascertained and initiated.
How the hazardous infectious waste is handled and management is crucial; to control and
prevent further transmission of the infectious disease. Capacity building the subordinate
staffs that is; in-charge of handling waste and equipping them with the right preventive and
protective devices/equipment is a strategic solution of preventing transmission, recurrent
and reinfection of infectious diseases. Moreover, facilities for management of hazardous
waste such as color coded bins, incinerators, placenta pits should not only be provided and
established to the required standards but they should also be maintained to function up-to
standards.
REFERENCE
CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). 2015. National Laboratory System
(NLS), http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/mlp/nls.aspx

4. Global Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection: Assessing the Challenges— Finding
Solutions, Rapporteurs: Stanley M. Lemon, Margaret A. Hamburg, P. Frederick Sparling,
Eileen R. Choffnes, and Alison Mack (2007)
Heymann D, 2004 Control of communicable diseases manual, 18th edn, American Public
Health Association (the 17th edition, Chin J ed. 2000, was used in compiling The blue book).