Disease Module User Guidelines
The module has 2 separate workflows (currently not linked to each other):
(A) Recording & Reporting on # Cases by Status & Location
- Statistics
- can aggregate up from local level to regional & national
- includes Timeplot reporting
(B) Recording individual cases
- Status: Symptoms or not
- Status Monitoring (& hence History)
- Test Results
- Contact Tracing
- a "case" links a person to a disease, which means they have in some way been exposed to it
- The "exposure" tab captures all circumstances when, where and how they have been exposed, and to which other case
- The "monitoring" tab captures the current illness status and symptoms during the monitoring period
- The "diagnostics" tab captures all tests of the person for this illness, and the conclusions thereof
- The "contacts" tab documents all persons this person has had contact to during the tracing period
- The "tracing" tab captures all situations where the person could have infected others during the tracing period
The "tracing" period refers to the time before symptom debut (incubation period) where the person could have transmitted the disease. The goal of tracing is to identify all contact persons for this period - and have them checked for symptoms. You normally only trace contacts of persons who show signs of the disease - but if a person is asymptomatic, yet tests positive, then the trace period would be counted from the latest exposure backwards.
The "monitoring" period refers to the time after the latest exposure where a person could potentially transmit the disease without necessarily having any symptoms themselves. This is often also the maximum incubation period, plus a certain safety margin - basically the time where you (in the case of COVID-19) should self-isolate. The monitoring level "Quarantine" describes this, although we could add self-isolation explicitly. The monitoring period is usually counted from the latest exposure onward, but if/when the person develops symptoms, it is extended until recovery plus safety margin.
High-risk exposures automatically create new cases as soon as the diagnosis status of the original case indicates the person is likely infected. Those new cases automatically appear on the "watch list".
