[Centres - Public Health Agency of Canada]

Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control

The Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control's objectives are to decrease transmission of infectious diseases and to improve the health status of those infected. To achieve its objectives, the Centre provides national leadership and conducts, supports and coordinates public health actions on surveillance and epidemiology, infectious disease outbreak investigations, risk management, research including laboratory science, health promotion, public health policy development, and prevention and care programs. The Centre works in close partnership with Canada's provinces and territories and performs liaison work with international organizations and agencies to actively support global disease eradication initiatives.

The Centre's program areas include immunization and respiratory infections, community acquired infections including Hepatitis C, blood safety surveillance and health care acquired infections, HIV/AIDS policy/coordination/programs, and HIV and retrovirology laboratories. The development of national infectious disease guidelines are also a major activity of this Centre.

The Centre is structured as follows:

• Office of the Director General
• Blood Safety Surveillance and Health Care Acquired Infections Division
• Community Acquired Infections Division
• Foodborne, Waterborne and Zoonotic Infections Division
• HIV/AIDS Policy, Coordination and Programs Division
• Immunization and Respiratory Infections Division
• National HIV and Retrovirology Laboratories
• Surveillance and Risk Assessment Division

Office of the Director General

The Office of the Director General provides overall strategic direction and coordination to the various Divisions and program areas. There are three main strategic functions within the Office of the Director General, and these include: Business Planning, Information and Communications Management, and Program Policy and Analysis. The Office of the Director General also oversees overall Centre coordination of Cabinet Business.

Blood Safety Surveillance and Health Care Acquired Infections Division

Through surveillance, risk assessment and targeted research, the Blood Safety Surveillance and Health Care Acquired Infections Division provides national leadership in the development and promotion of a national management/policy structure to reduce the risk of bloodborne pathogen infections (including hepatitis, prions and emerging pathogens), transfusion-transmitted injuries and infections resulting from the transplantation of tissues and organs.

The Nosocomial and Occupational Infections Section implements enhanced infection control and prevention programs in health care facilities and other community settings by collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and disseminating epidemiologic information on nosocomial and occupational infections in the Canadian population such as NOI surveillance, infection control guidelines, antimicrobial resistance, needle stick surveillance network.

The Bloodborne Pathogens Section undertakes and supports the surveillance of bloodborne pathogens, including viral hepatitis, parasitic and emerging or re-emerging bloodborne pathogens. This surveillance is performed in collaboration with the National Microbiology Lab (NML). The Section further conducts risk assessment, prevention and control of infectious agents transmitted through the use of blood, blood products, tissues, cells and organs, including gene and stem cell therapies. The Section is active in developing and supporting national networks, databases and research studies many of which are relevant to new and emerging bloodborne pathogens. Data resulting from surveillance is translated into health intelligence to inform policy decisions and support the development and evaluation of targeted intervention strategies.

The Section also covers xenotransplantation related surveillance and policy development. It develops new methods to identify animal viruses capable of transmission to human hosts, relevant to xenotransplantation. Surveillance for exposure to these agents is conducted and potential intervention measures are assessed, culminating in policy recommendations.

Community Acquired Infections Division

The Division provides national leadership and coordination of surveillance, targeted research studies, evidence-based national standards, policy development and information dissemination for sexually-transmitted infections. It supports a holistic view of sexual and reproductive health and works to ensure access to services and programs, including sexual health education, that help Canadians improve and maintain their sexual and personal health. The Division works with provinces, non-governmental organizations, and health care providers to improve and maintain the sexual health of the Canadian population by preventing and controlling sexually transmitted diseases and their complications including infertility and cancer.

The Division designs, develops and implements programs that will prevent hepatitis C infection, supports people infected with or affected by the disease and increases public awareness about hepatitis C. In addition, the Division manages the financial arrangements for the Hepatitis C Settlement Agreement; administers the Hepatitis C Prevention, Support and Research Program; oversees the transfer of funds to the provinces and territories for hepatitis C health care services and hepatitis C look-back/trace-back initiatives. The Division is the focal point for a population health approach to hepatitis C ensuring a coordinated and integrated federal response.

Finally, the Division provides leadership and co-ordination in the prevention and control of tuberculosis in collaboration with partners at the regional, provincial/territorial, national and international levels. Key activities include development of a Canadian Strategy for Tuberculosis Prevention and Control, funding and coordination of the advisory Canadian Tuberculosis Committee, and surveillance reports on TB cases, TB drug susceptibility test results and Correctional Service of Canada inmate TB cases plus latent TB infections. In addition, it sponsors targeted research, provides policy and program advice as well as training to other government departments and supports the STOP-TB initiative to control TB in developing countries.

Foodborne, Waterborne and Zoonotic Infections Division

This Division implements an enhanced national capacity to conduct surveillance (data collection, analysis, interpretation, dissemination) and investigation of (a) food and waterborne diseases, and (b) zoonotic diseases (diseases in domestic and wild animals relevant to human health, i.e., West Nile Virus). The activities include maintaining and developing a national food and water safety surveillance system and providing national leadership to improve enteric disease surveillance and participate in international surveillance. The Division also investigates and coordinates investigations of foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks across Canada and provides guidance and direction, as requested, by to the Provincial Health Authorities; facilitates and coordinates risk analysis and risk management activities with international, federal, provincial and local partner organizations; conducts, supports and coordinates targeted research in critical areas; and identifies emerging threats to the health and safety of Canadians. The Division currently coordinates the national response to West Nile virus, including coordination with P/T stakeholders, development of guidance documents and maintenance of national surveillance.

HIV/AIDS Policy, Coordination and Programs Division

The HIV/AIDS Policy, Coordination and Programs Division coordinates, implements and monitors the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS (CSHA). The HIV/AIDS Division moves the Strategy towards a nationally shared vision through improved collaboration among all levels of governments, communities, non-governmental organizations, professional groups, researchers institutions and the private sector. The Division also provides national expertise on key activities under the CSHA such as: strategy management; policy development and information synthesis; prevention care and treatment programs; marketing and communications; as well as strategy monitoring and evaluation.

Immunization and Respiratory Infections Division

The aim of the Division is to reduce or eliminate vaccine preventable and infectious respiratory diseases in Canada. In partnership with provinces and territories, the Division is responsible for the national surveillance of vaccine preventable and infectious respiratory diseases, including influenza and SARS, surveillance of vaccine associated adverse events and monitoring of immunization status, including the development of an immunization registry network. It provides scientific and administrative support to the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and Pandemic Influenza Committee. The Division also investigates and coordinates investigations of vaccine preventable and infectious respiratory disease outbreaks across Canada, and provides guidance and direction, when requested, by provincial or territorial public health authorities when outbreaks of vaccine preventable or infectious respiratory diseases occur in individual jurisdictions. The Division also conducts, supports and coordinates applied public health research in the areas of immunization and infectious respiratory disease, and identifies and communicates emerging vaccine preventable and infectious respiratory disease threats to Canadians. The Division collaborates with other national governments and international organizations to prevent and control vaccine preventable and infectious respiratory diseases.

National HIV and Retrovirology Laboratories

The HIV and Retrovirology Laboratory provides comprehensive expertise to national and international partners in human and emerging retrovirus testing and research. These partners include other Health Canada programs (such as regulatory branches of Health Canada), laboratories associated with the provincial ministry of health, and hospital and blood-screening labs. The Laboratory provides expertise in HIV/HTLV reference service testing and national and international quality assurance programs for HIV serology, viral load testing and lymphocyte enumeration. The Laboratory also develops, evaluates and transfers related technologies to national and international partners. In addition, the National HIV Laboratories provides laboratory support for HIV and STD surveillance programs through the provision of the specialised laboratory testing necessary for national HIV incidence estimates as well as laboratory support of the Canadian HIV Strain Surveillance and Drug Resistance Surveillance Program (CHSDRSP).

Surveillance and Risk Assessment Division

This Division conducts national surveillance of notifiable diseases, undertakes risk assessments and carries out modelling and projections for infectious diseases, with particular attention being paid to newly emerging threats. The Division also manages a regionally-based network of field surveillance officers to work with provincial and territorial authorities to improve the timeliness and completeness of surveillance data on infectious diseases. The Division collects and analyses national HIV and AIDS surveillance information and assesses the temporal, geographic and demographic trends in the HIV epidemic. In addition, the Division provides public health intelligence on the size and trend of the HIV/AIDS epidemics in Canada and provides technical and financial support for extramural, targeted research and analysis (including outbreak investigations), performs intramural research and analysis, and hosts national meetings on issues of importance to HIV epidemiology and surveillance.

[Centres - Public Health Agency of Canada]