An Outbreak of Chickenpox among Vehicle and Maintenance Department In a Hospital, Chanthaburi Province, Thailand, 18 January - 28 February 2014

Abstract

On February 13, 2014 Chanthaburi Provincial Health Offices received a notification of a cluster of Chickenpox among drivers of a hospital from Preventive Medicine Department of the hospital. The Surveillance and Rapid Response Teams conducted outbreak investigation in the hospital with aimed to confirm diagnosis and outbreak, to describe the epidemiological characteristics, to identify the source of outbreak and to give a specific recommendation for prevention and control measures. Descriptive study was done and we conducted active case finding in the hospital. The case definition was applied by standard surveillance definition. Totally 9 cases met case definition of Chickenpox. Their onsets were between January 18 and February 28, 2014. Six cases were maintenance officers and 3 cases were drivers who working in the hospital. The first case was driver officer. He was infected by a son of maintenance staff who was chicken pox. And then the outbreak occurred among maintenance officers and drivers. But there was no additional case in other departments. The risk of infection was the direct contact with the infected person without varicella immunization. For conclusion, there was confirmed Chickenpox outbreak among hospital staffs in maintenance and vehicle department during 18 January - 28 February 2014. The source of outbreak was propagated. We recommended the hospital officer who was Chickenpox must be absent and doesn’t bring the relative who was sick to working place. Personal hygiene by wearing mask and hand washing was recommended. The varicella immunization is recommended among the hospital staffs to prevent the future outbreak and nosocomial infection in the hospital.