Versions
- 2024-08-02 (3)
- 2024-08-04 (2)
- 2024-08-02 (1)
Keywords
Epidemiology
notifiable diseases
Infectious diseases
Surveillance
Covid-19 Pandemic
Abstract
Introduction. Directly or indirectly, COVID-19 have impacted the reporting of notifiable communicable diseases. Since the beginning of the pandemic and the introduction of COVID-19-related public health measures, notifications for most notifiable diseases have declined when compared to previous years. In this study, we aim to quantify the changes in the incidences of notifiable infectious diseases with different transmission modes before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Siracusa Local Health Authority, Italy.
Methods. We collected and analysed the infectious disease notifications made in two different three-years periods, 2017-2019 and 2020-2022 in Siracusa Local Health Authority, Italy.
Results. The total number of notifications significantly decreased by 69.3% in the pandemic period compared to the pre-pandemic one, with the highest reduction of air-borne transmission diseases (-86.5%), followed by food-borne diseases (-68.2%) and sexually transmitted diseases (-39.3%). Conversely, an increase in number of notifications was found only for legionellosis, while an increase trend, but without any statistical significance, was found for food poisoning, syphilis, typhoid and paratyphoid fever.
Conclusions. The COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to influence communicable disease reporting at multiple points. While the effects could vary considerably, the results would be expected to reduce the number and the detection of notifiable cases. Included would be changes in exposures, diagnostic testing, reporting to public health agencies, and public health investigations.
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