Introduction

The year 2010 saw a change in the organization of health surveillance in Poitou-Charentes with the creation of the regional health surveillance platform within the Regional Health Agency (ARS). Since June 2010, the ARS’s health surveillance and alert management unit has been responsible for:

• receiving all health-related reports, including notifiable diseases (NDs),

• managing reports and alerts.

In addition, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS), through its regional units in Limousin and Poitou-Charentes, carries out the following tasks within the regional surveillance platform:

• it contributes to the assessment of signals and ensures the evaluation of situations that require it and of which it is informed,

• it conducts regional analysis of data from the InVS surveillance systems and transmits the resulting alerts.

It is within this framework that this edition of the Health Surveillance Bulletin was prepared. It focuses on the regional analysis of 2010 MDO data, particularly foodborne infectious diseases (botulism, listeriosis, brucellosis, foodborne toxi-infections, hepatitis A) and zoonoses (tularemia, brucellosis).

In this analysis, a significant increase in reports is noted for several MDOs in 2010, particularly for collective foodborne illnesses. This could reflect the promotion of the new health surveillance system and greater engagement among reporting entities.