Instituto de Salud Carlos III

Centro Colaborador de la OMS

UISAT as a WHO Collaborating Centre. Objectives

Purpose

Welcome to the website of the CISAT, WHO Collaborating Centre for the Epidemiology of Environment-related Diseases. CISAT is located at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, in Madrid (Spain).

The objective of this initiative is to build an information system on public health environmental problems that can serve to advise investigators involved in these sort of situations related to both environmental exposures and diseases.

In this first phase we have implemented different accesses to this website such us mirror sites of information of the ATSDR, MMWR publication and the Supercourse from the University of Pittsburgh. We have also added a brief description on some environmental outbreaks.

We are designing a database of the environmental problems that will be published in the next update of this information system.

Comments about the variables to be included as well as other additional suggestions will be welcome. Thanks

About collaborating centre: objetives

Administrative details

WHO collaborating centre for: Epidemiology of Environment-related Diseases

Name of unit:
Toxic Oil Syndrome and Rare Diseases Research Center (Centro de Investigación sobre el Síndrome del Aceite Tóxico y Enfermedades Raras-CISATER)

Address:
Instituto de Salud Carlos III
Subdireccion General de Epidemiología y Centros Nacionales de Salud Pública
Sinesio Delgado 6
E-28029 Madrid
Spain
Telephone: 34 91 387 7803
Telefax: 34 91 387 7895
Web: http://www.isciii.es

Director of Institute:
Dr Antonio Campos Muñoz

Head of centre (main contact person):
Dr Manuel Posada de la Paz

Plan of work and terms of reference

The centre would act as advisor and facilitator in the investigation of emerging diseases of unknown origin, where microbiological or toxicological cause is suspected.

The centre would also work on preparedness for these circumstances by performing the following tasks.

1. Maintaining documentation about the investigation of diseases of unknown origin (at least in their inception). The exact format of this database and the form which it will be made available will be agreed with the centre. It is anticipated that these episodes would be classified according to the methods used in their investigation, sequence of events, key factors which facilitated the identification of cause (when this was found), and making a critical assessment of these methods, including completeness of follow-up for example.
2. Developing a review of outbreak investigation of diseases of unknown origin and/or difficult diagnosis.  This would be published as a book and would emphasize the aspects related to the investigation procedures.  Critical analyses of the investigation of the clinical aspects, epidemiological, and associated factors would be included.
   
   This review would build on the large body of existing work but would have the added value of incorporating both toxicological and microbiological hypothesis and considerations, and of also including sessions which look at critical issues for the investigation from the perspective of food, water and toxicology.  The inclusion of sections on the outbreak investigation from the water and  food safety and toxicology perspectives could provide additional and relevant insights into how to conduct these investigations.
   
   This book would be carried out in collaboration between the collaborating centre and WHO ECEH Rome and Bilthoven Divisions; the collaborating centre would lead the initiative jointly with the WHO ECEH epidemiology programme, fully involving the water, food safety and toxicology programmes as partners.  The outline of contents would be agreed between these parties, along with the list of authors which will involve staff from the centre, from WHO, and also other international collaborators from national and research institutes carrying out outbreak investigations.  The book chapters would be discussed at an international meeting where final editing would be agreed.  The centre would host this meeting jointly with WHO ECEH Rome.
3. The centre would collaborate with WHO in enlarging a network of experts to respond to outbreak investigations in countries of the Region at their request to WHO.  This network was begin at the epidemiology programme WHO ECEH Rome with individuals working on infectious diseases mostly.  In collaboration with the centre this would be expanded to incorporate further expertise on toxic and chemical exposures.
   
   The response given by this network would help collect examples of outbreak investigation in the region, which will be made available from the documentation centre.  This could allow in a longer time frame to collect and analyse information on new outbreaks investigated in the region and include them in the database mentioned under number one. The details of the management of this network will be agreed between the centre and WHO ECEH Rome.