Risk assessment of public health emergency and concerned infectious diseases in mainland China, February 2014

Objective To assess the risk of public health emergency and communicable diseases concerned in the mainland of China in February 2014.Methods Semi-structured interviews and discussions among subject matter experts based on surveillance data and public health organization bulletins, et al. And 26 provincial Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attended the assessment through remote video conference.Results According to the surveillance data of infectious disease and public health emergency,the occurrence of public health emergency events in February will be the lowest level of the year, and the most common event categories may be respiratory infectious disease outbreaks, carbon monoxide poisoning, and food poisoning.There would be more sporadic cases of human infection with A(H7N9) avian influenza, and there may be some another occasionally human sporadic cases of other avian influenzas (H10N8, H5N1, et al). The seasonal influenza is with high activity in northern and southern parts of China, and following the school opening, there may be more influenza outbreaks. There is no change about infectivity of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS) Coronary Virus, and there is no case reported 1week before Chinese Lunar New Year Festival and during the festival(1 week); there may still exist risk of imported case of MERS, but the risk would be lower than before Chinese Lunar New Year. Recently most parts of China have lower temperature than the same period before, and carbon monoxide poisoning would still be at high level. Conclusion It is expected that the national public health emergencies in February 2014 would be the lowest level of the whole year; and it is needed to majorly concern human infection with avian influenza(H7N9, H10N8, H5N1), and generally concern seasonal influenza and MERS, and keep on concerning prevention and treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning.