The San Francisco Bay Area Cryptosporidiosis Surveillance Project is coordinated by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in cooperation with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the California Emerging Infections Program, and local health departments. This program gets reports of confirmed cryptosporidiosis from clinical laboratories and calls the patients to interview them about how they might have gotten the disease. The project covers people in San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Tuolumne counties. There are three main goals of the project:
- Enhance reporting of human cases of cryptosporidiosis
- Monitor trends over time
- Detect increases in the number of reported cases or outbreaks early enough to allow timely investigation and possible intervention.
We try to interview every case and ask about their exposures so that we can rule-in or rule-out any waterborne cause. We also help our Communicable Disease Control Unit with interviewing other reportable disease cases and assisting with outbreak investigation. This collaborative activity provides an opportunity to engage actively with other Communicable Disease Investigators and to ensure that any signals indicating potential for waterborne transmission are noticed.
No drinking-waterborne outbreaks of disease have been detected in San Francisco. However, the Cryptosporidiosis Surveillance Project was responsible for identifying and intervening to prevent wider spread of a recreational waterborne outbreak of Cryptosporidiosis in Santa Clara county in 2006.
Program Contact
Wendy Lu, MPH