Ottawa Public Health appeals to province for more money to track infectious diseases

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Ottawa Public Health is asking Ontario’s Ministry of Health to review how it funds infectious disease tracking in light of soaring rates of some infectious diseases.

“In recent years, workload related to infectious disease case and contact management has substantially increased due to increased disease rates, population growth and immigration and travel and emergence or amplification of new diseases due to climate change,” reads a report that will be presented at an upcoming Ottawa Board of Health meeting.

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The report says Ottawa Public Health’s current resources are not enough to sustain the work required to meet Ontario’s protocols for disease tracking, “given the increases in disease rates and trends described in this report,” adding, “further strain is anticipated on the program as infectious disease rates are likely to continue to rise in 2024 and beyond.”

The report says preventing and reducing the spread of infectious diseases via case and contact management is a “core activity” of Ottawa Public Health, and by law 70 diseases of public health significance must be reported and tracked. Those include tuberculosis, Lyme disease, HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis and more, many of which have been rising in recent years, the report says.

Cases of invasive Group A streptococcal infections in Ottawa, for example, have risen by 110 per cent when comparing the average number for 2017-2019 to 2023, the report says. Reports of Lyme disease have increased by 99 per cent over that same period, and HIV cases have risen by 73 per cent.

SOURCE: Ottawa Public Health

Case management means ensuring that a person diagnosed with an infectious disease receives appropriate treatment, follow-up care and support to prevent the spread of the disease to others, the report reads, while contact management involves identifying and monitoring people who have been in contact with a person diagnosed with a communicable disease in order to prevent further transmission.

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The report says a “critical” part of preventing and managing infectious diseases is working with community partners, including local hospitals, community health centres, shelters and more “to ensure effective testing, treatment, support and education.”

The burden of infectious diseases has been growing in Ottawa for various reasons, the report says, including population growth, travel and immigration, climate change and more.

Ottawa is also seeing an increase in the number of people with infectious diseases who can’t isolate safely away from others or access adequate food, housing, mental health support, addiction services or primary care due to “significant social and economic barriers.”

To support these complex needs, nurses with OPH’s infectious disease case and contact management program “rely heavily on the expertise and resources of various community partners, many of which have limited capacity such as isolation spaces in shelters,” the report reads.

The Ministry of Health is conducting a review of the Ontario Public Health Standards and associated protocols and guidelines, the report reads, and OPH is asking for funding for infectious disease tracking and tracing to be considered as part of the review.

Ottawa Public Health is also urging the province to accelerate the development of a provincial tool for case and contact management documentation and surveillance tool for infectious diseases to provide “significant efficiencies in infectious disease case and contact management work.”

The report is to be presented at the Ottawa Board of Health meeting on Monday.

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