What to know
OutbreakNet Enhanced (OBNE) is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program that is designed to provide support to state and local health departments to improve their capacity to detect, investigate, control, and respond to enteric disease outbreaks. OBNE started in August 2015 with 11 sites. The program expanded and there are now 29 participating sites.
Highlights
Program overviews and activities supported by OBNE funds were presented at scientific conferences, programmatic meetings, and invited talks including:
- InFORM Regional Meetings
- Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Annual Meeting
- FDA Rapid Response Team (RRT) Face-to-Face meeting
- Site-specific meetings and training events
OBNE sites shared their accomplishments during monthly calls to learn about the strategies other sites have used to improve their processes. They also worked with the Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence (Food Safety CoEs) to improve their surveillance and investigation capacity. Program activities were shared through success stories that were published to the OBNE website.
Program performance
OBNE performance metrics have been collected since 2016 to document the burden, timeliness, and completeness of enteric disease outbreak activities. Sites report metrics annually on both laboratory and epidemiologic aspects of outbreak investigations. Metrics are reported for Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria (SSL metrics), and optionally for Shigella and Campylobacter. The metrics are revised as needed to best meet program needs.
Select 2019 Metrics for Salmonella, STEC, and Listeria (SSL)
- Nearly 50,000 cases reported
- Over 1,100 clusters detected
- Average of 94% of cases with attempted interviews
From 2016 to 2019, OBNE sites increased the percent of SSL cases with WGS testing
Over the same period, OBNE sites reduced the time from isolate receipt/recovery to sequence upload from 20.9 days to 10.5 days.
From 2016 to 2019, OBNE sites decreased the number of days from case report to initial interview attempt
In 2019, OBNE sites conducted routine interviews of cases in 96.6% of cluster and outbreak investigations.