Page updated 30 April 2007
Ward-based Surveillance (Alert Conditions)
Alert conditions are medical syndromes such as chicken pox or diarrhoea which immediately suggest a risk of infection. It is the responsibility of the ward staff to notify the infection control team if they suspect an infection which may be a risk to others. Appropriate specimens must be taken and sent promptly, properly labelled, to the laboratory (For example, the first diarrhoeal stool from a patient must be sent for exclusion of salmonellosis and Clostridium difficile infection). Source Isolation precautions must be instituted immediately that infection is suspected.
You must tell the Infection Control Team about any Alert Conditions.
Examples of Alert Conditions
| Patient admitted with any infection | |
| Post surgical sepsis | |
| Diarrhoea and/or vomiting | |
| Diarrhoea with blood (dysentery or colitis) | |
| Cellulitis | |
| Tuberculosis (chronic productive cough) | |
| Exanthemata (acute rash illness) | |
| Chicken pox or shingles | |
| Mumps, measles, rubella, parvovirus | |
| Whooping cough | |
| Poliomyelitis | |
| Diphtheria | |
| Scabies | |
| Meningitis | |
| Viral hepatitis | |
| Ophthalmia neonatorum | |
| Pyrexia of unknown origin | |
| Typhoid and paratyphoid fevers | |
| Viral haemorrhagic fever | |
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