SRNA hosted an Ask the Expert podcast, in collaboration with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on "CDC and the Role of Public Health in Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM)." We were joined by Dr. Janell Routh of CDC, Dr. Ben Greenberg of UT Southwestern Medical Center, and Emily Spence Davizon of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The experts discuss the process of how AFM cases are diagnosed, reported to public health agencies, sent to CDC, and classified. They describe the role of each organization/agency in reporting a case and the stages each case goes through. The experts define important terms such as surveillance, nationally notifiable, and mandatory reporting. Finally, the experts reiterate the importance of reporting cases for public health purposes, the need for clinicians to be aware of reporting, and the ways in which the case definition of AFM has evolved since 2014.
