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Investigations of disease outbreak

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Please help me with the following "thinking" question:

"200 students from a School (total enrolment of 250) leave on a Friday for a ski trip to Jasper. They travel in four buses. On Sunday 6 students report feeling ill with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. On Monday the principal plans to say there are 30 students absent.

1. Describe how you would investigate. Make as many assumptions as you like. What questions would you ask?"

According to the CDC... the steps are

Outbreak investigations have essential components as follows:

1) establish case definition(s);
2) confirm that cases are "real";
3) establish the background rate of disease;
4) find cases, decide if there is an outbreak, define scope of the outbreak;
5) examine the descriptive epidemiologic features of the cases;
6) generate hypotheses;
7) test hypotheses;
8) collect and test environmental samples;
9) implement control measures; and
10) interact with the press, inform the public.

While the first seven components are listed in logical order, in most outbreak investigations, many occur more or less simultaneously. The importance of these components may vary depending on the circumstances of a specific outbreak.

What questions do you recommend? What steps should I follow? I appreciate your professional opinion.

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Solution Summary

Based on the scenario, this solution describes how to investigate the problem and what questions would be asked and the steps to be followed.

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