When a disease outbreak occurs, there are many players involved in combating disease spread and severity of the outbreak. Some examples of key players are the World Health Organization, Doctors without Borders, the Centers for Disease Control, and State Level Departments of Health. Each of these organizations follow multiple steps of an outbreak investigation. The ten steps for an outbreak investigation are:
- “Identify investigation team and resources
- Establish existence of an outbreak
- Verify the diagnosis
- Construct case definition
- Find cases systematically and develop line listing
- Perform descriptive epidemiology/develop hypotheses
- Evaluate hypotheses/perform additional studies as necessary
- Implement control measures
- Communicate findings
- Maintain surveillance” (Moore)
