Author(s)

Junko Kurita¹, Natsuki Nagasu², Noriko Nagata³, Naomi Sakurai⁴, Yasushi Ohkusa⁵, Tamie Sugawara⁵

¹The Graduate School of Health Sciences, Ibaraki Prefectural University, Ibaraki, Japan.
²Health Services Disease Control Division, Department of Health and Social Services, Ibaraki, Japan.
³Ibaraki Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Ibaraki, Japan.
⁴Center for Medical Sciences, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences, Ibaraki, Japan.
⁵National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan.

Objective: We present descriptive epidemiology of Mycoplasma infection using the (Nursery) School Absenteeism Surveillance System ((N)SASSy) in addition to national official sentinel surveillance for infectious diseases (NOSSID). It is expected to be helpful for early detection and response to outbreak of Mycoplasma infection and also to be useful for antimicrobial resistance measures. Method: The study period was 2010-2014 seasons. The study area was the whole of Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. NOSSID reports the number of patients with Mycoplasma pneumonia from 13 sentinel hospitals. We compare the number of patients and the incidence rate of NOSSID with the same information in (N)SASSy. Result: In NOSSID, the largest number of patients by age was 27 patients of one year old in 2012. (N)SASSy showed that the incidence rate in the elementary schools is high in 2011 and 2012. Especially, the second grade students were the highest. Discussion: Even though Mycoplasma infection is well known as a pediatric disease, we showed that second grade was the highest in incidence at first. Because (N)SASSy is timely and real-time information collection, evaluation and sharing countermeasures with (nursery) schools, public health centers, and physicians are useful for students and nursery school children, and communities. Conclusion: Because mycoplasma infection is common pediatric infectious diseases and because some patients rarely develop severe infections, we must prevent larger outbreaks. (N)SASSy can provide timely intervention at the initial phase of outbreak by monitoring situations in (nursery) schools and comparing data to baseline information.

Mycoplasma Infection, (Nursery) School Absenteeism Surveillance System, Surveillance

Kurita, J. , Nagasu, N. , Nagata, N. , Sakurai, N. , Ohkusa, Y. and Sugawara, T. (2018) Descriptive Epidemiology for Mycoplasma pneumoniae Infection Using (Nursery) School Absenteeism Surveillance System, and Proposal for Countermeasures. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 6, 33-42. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2018.610005.