Highlights
- •Timely information was key to the travel health sector during the Ebola virus outbreak.
- •Data on information seeking behaviors carry potential for surveillance.
- •Traffic to a travel health Web site showed early and sustained interest in the outbreak.
- •This suggests potential for a syndromic surveillance system.
Timely outbreak information was paramount to public health bodies issuing travel advisories
during the 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak. This article explores the potential
for a syndromic system/Shewhart control chart based on the online interaction with
a national travel health Web site in comparison with searches on the Google UK search
engine. The study showed an amplification of perceived risk among users of a national
travel health Web site months before the World Health Organization declared the outbreak
a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and the initial surge in public
interest on Google UK in August 2014.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 02, 2018
Footnotes
Conflicts of interest: None to report.
Author contributions: J.P., H.S., and D.P. were closely involved with the design, conduct, analysis, presentation, and interpretation of the study findings.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
