2019 Tabletop Exercise for Laboratory Diagnosis and Analyses of Unknown Disease Outbreaks by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Abstract

Objectives The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published “A Guideline for Unknown Disease Outbreaks (UDO).” The aim of this report was to introduce tabletop exercises (TTX) to prepare for UDO in the future. Methods The UDO Laboratory Analyses Task Force in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in April 2018, assigned unknown diseases into 5 syndromes, designed an algorithm for diagnosis, and made a panel list for diagnosis by exclusion. Using the guidelines and laboratory analyses for UDO, TTX were introduced. Results Since September 9 th , 2018, the UDO Laboratory Analyses Task Force has been preparing TTX based on a scenario of an outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus. In December 2019, through TTX, individual missions, epidemiological investigations, sample treatments, diagnosis by exclusions, and next generation sequencing analysis were discussed, and a novel coronavirus was identified as the causal pathogen. Conclusion Guideline and laboratory analyses for UDO successfully applied in TTX. Conclusions drawn from TTX could be applied effectively in the analyses for the initial response to COVID-19, an ongoing epidemic of 2019 – 2020. Therefore, TTX should continuously be conducted for the response and preparation against UDO.

Projected lifetime cancer risk from cone-beam computed tomography for orthodontic treatment

“…Organ doses under the median and maximum exposure settings were calculated for adult male and female patients using ALARA-Dental software (Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea; Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea; Figure 1 ). 13 ALARA-Dental is a software that provides estimated organ doses and effective doses delivered for the acquisition of dental radiographs, including intraoral radiographs, panoramic radiographs, and CBCT images. It uses the Monte Carlo (MC) method, a computer simulation technique for modeling the transport of particles based on the probability distribution for radiation interaction with matter.…”

“… ALARA-Dental software (Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea, and Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Korea) 13 for estimating organ doses delivered for the acquisition of dental radiographs, including intraoral radiographs, panoramic radiographs, and cone-beam computed tomography images. …”