Syndromic Surveillance Based on Emergency Visits: A Reactive Tool for Unusual Events Detection

During the past years, syndromic surveillance based on emergency visits allowed to monitor seasonal epidemics in Reunion Island and to measure their health impact. Nevertheless, its ability to detect minor unusual events still had to be demonstrated. Between 2011 and 2012, several small scale unusual health events were detected (autochthonous cases of measles, family foodborne illness etc.), leading to health alerts and requiring immediate control measures.