Role of contact tracing in containing the 2014 Ebola outbreak: a review

Saurabh, Shrivastava Prateek; Prateek, Shrivastava

doi:10.4314/ahs.v17i1.28

Cited by 82 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Contact tracing is not unique to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been used extensively in previous emerging infectious disease outbreaks [ 10 ]. In this paper, we report a rapid review of contact tracing to identify factors that are associated with greater engagement by patients, defined as greater likelihood of providing full details of all relevant contacts, or of downloading and using an application-based contact tracing system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitators and barriers to engagement with contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks: A rapid review of the evidence

et al. 2020

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Background Until a vaccine is developed, a test, trace and isolate strategy is the most effective method of controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. Contact tracing and case isolation are common methods for controlling infectious disease outbreaks. However, the effectiveness of any contact tracing system rests on public engagement. Numerous factors may influence an individual’s willingness to engage with a contact tracing system. Understanding these factors has become urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective To identify facilitators and barriers to uptake of, and engagement with, contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks. Method A rapid systematic review was conducted to identify papers based on primary research, written in English, and that assessed facilitators, barriers, and other factors associated with the uptake of, and engagement with, a contact tracing system. Principal findings Four themes were identified as facilitators to the uptake of, and engagement with, contact tracing: collective responsibility; personal benefit; co-production of contact tracing systems; and the perception of the system as efficient, rigorous and reliable. Five themes were identified as barriers to the uptake of, and engagement with, contact tracing: privacy concerns; mistrust and/or apprehension; unmet need for more information and support; fear of stigmatization; and mode-specific challenges. Conclusions By focusing on the factors that have been identified, contact tracing services are more likely to get people to engage with them, identify more potentially ill contacts, and reduce transmission.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitators and barriers to engagement with contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks: A rapid review of the evidence

et al. 2020

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“…Additional measures, such as patient and visitor registration system downloads, staff roster and electronic medical record (EMR) reviews, and direct observations via closed-circuit television have been employed for contact tracing in health care settings [ 7 ]. These processes are labor intensive, yet time sensitive and crucial for stemming the spread of the infectious disease at the emergence of an outbreak [ 4 , 8 , 9 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of Digital Contact Tracing Tools for COVID-19 Response in Singapore: Cross-Sectional Study

Huang¹,

Guo²,

Lee³

et al. 2020

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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Background Effective contact tracing is labor intensive and time sensitive during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also essential in the absence of effective treatment and vaccines. Singapore launched the first Bluetooth-based contact tracing app—TraceTogether—in March 2020 to augment Singapore’s contact tracing capabilities. Objective This study aims to compare the performance of the contact tracing app—TraceTogether—with that of a wearable tag-based real-time locating system (RTLS) and to validate them against the electronic medical records at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), the national referral center for COVID-19 screening. Methods All patients and physicians in the NCID screening center were issued RTLS tags (CADI Scientific) for contact tracing. In total, 18 physicians were deployed to the NCID screening center from May 10 to May 20, 2020. The physicians activated the TraceTogether app (version 1.6; GovTech) on their smartphones during shifts and urged their patients to use the app. We compared patient contacts identified by TraceTogether and those identified by RTLS tags within the NCID vicinity during physicians’ 10-day posting. We also validated both digital contact tracing tools by verifying the physician-patient contacts with the electronic medical records of 156 patients who attended the NCID screening center over a 24-hour time frame within the study period. Results RTLS tags had a high sensitivity of 95.3% for detecting patient contacts identified either by the system or TraceTogether while TraceTogether had an overall sensitivity of 6.5% and performed significantly better on Android phones than iPhones (Android: 9.7%, iPhone: 2.7%; P<.001). When validated against the electronic medical records, RTLS tags had a sensitivity of 96.9% and specificity of 83.1%, while TraceTogether only detected 2 patient contacts with physicians who did not attend to them. Conclusions TraceTogether had a much lower sensitivity than RTLS tags for identifying patient contacts in a clinical setting. Although the tag-based RTLS performed well for contact tracing in a clinical setting, its implementation in the community would be more challenging than TraceTogether. Given the uncertainty of the adoption and capabilities of contact tracing apps, policy makers should be cautioned against overreliance on such apps for contact tracing. Nonetheless, leveraging technology to augment conventional manual contact tracing is a necessary move for returning some normalcy to life during the long haul of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…Contact tracing, the identification and follow-up of individuals who have had contacts with infectious individuals, is a critical process to ensure the best possible chance of control and the longest possible time to local take-off [ 9 ]. Contact tracing and follow-up control measures such as quarantine and isolation were crucially important during the SARS outbreak in 2003 [ 10 ], the Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2014 [ 11 ], as well as its part in the eradication of smallpox [ 12 ]. With current advances in vaccine development technologies, the role of contact tracing and follow-up control measures in the initial stage of an epidemic becomes especially important.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemic Models of Contact Tracing: Systematic Review of Transmission Studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome

Kwok

Tang

Wei

et al. 2019

Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

172

124

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The emergence and reemergence of coronavirus epidemics sparked renewed concerns from global epidemiology researchers and public health administrators. Mathematical models that represented how contact tracing and follow-up may control Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) transmissions were developed for evaluating different infection control interventions, estimating likely number of infections as well as facilitating understanding of their likely epidemiology. We reviewed mathematical models for contact tracing and follow-up control measures of SARS and MERS transmission. Model characteristics, epidemiological parameters and intervention parameters used in the mathematical models from seven studies were summarized. A major concern identified in future epidemics is whether public health administrators can collect all the required data for building epidemiological models in a short period of time during the early phase of an outbreak. Also, currently available models do not explicitly model constrained resources. We urge for closed-loop communication between public health administrators and modelling researchers to come up with guidelines to delineate the collection of the required data in the midst of an outbreak and the inclusion of additional logistical details in future similar models.

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Role of contact tracing in containing the 2014 Ebola outbreak: a review

Cited by 82 publications

References 42 publications

Facilitators and barriers to engagement with contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks: A rapid review of the evidence

Facilitators and barriers to engagement with contact tracing during infectious disease outbreaks: A rapid review of the evidence

Performance of Digital Contact Tracing Tools for COVID-19 Response in Singapore: Cross-Sectional Study

Epidemic Models of Contact Tracing: Systematic Review of Transmission Studies of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome

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