Establishment and evaluation on emergency surveillance and notification system of SARS in Guangzhou

  Objective   To describe the operation of the sur veillance and notification system on the SARS epidemic in Guang zhou and evaluate its sensitivity and specificity so as to identify and improve the unreaso nable sectors of the system and lay a good foundation for the sur veillance and notification of sudden public health incidents in the future.

  Methods   The establishment and operation of the surveillance and notification system on the SA RS epidemic in Guangzhou are described and relevant statistical analysis are applied to evaluate the system.

  Results   It takes 3.5 days for a suspected case to be confirmed and repor ted to the gover nment.Only 2 cases(2/1 204)are not reported(0.16%).The percentage of erroneous diagnosis is 11.50%.A total of 16 cases(11.32%)are reported twice or more.

  Conclusion   The sensitivity and specificity of the system is fairly good.A djustments are made in a timely manner to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the epidemic data.