| | Emerging Infectious Diseases - United Kingdom |
 | | Most data collection is performed electronically, through a computerized system that allows laboratory data to be captured at the source, augmented with clinical or risk factor data, and transmitted both centrally to CDSC and locally to the responsible public health professionals. |
 | | These three systems complement each other, and the data are collated, analyzed, and disseminated by CDSC and are then extensively used to inform both government policies and local activities for the prevention and control of communicable disease. |
 | | One of the side-effects of an efficient surveillance system is that because new diseases or variants of diseases and outbreaks are detected earlier than in countries with less comprehensive systems, such diseases are often thought to have originated, or to predominate, in that country. |
| www.cdc.gov /ncidod/eid/vol5no2/walford.htm (3022 words) |