Division of Infection Control
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The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is the country's infectious disease institute. The Division of Infection Control takes care of most of the tasks related to this role, and aims to contribute to effective infection control in Norway. The work is authorised by the Infection Control Act (§ 7-9) and several of its regulations.
We do this through knowledge, preparedness and infrastructure:
- We produce knowledge through monitoring, research and health analyses, using this as a basis for assessments and advice.
- We deliver preparedness through this knowledge, outbreak management, and 24-hour on-call functions.
- Our preparedness and knowledge rest on solid infrastructure and services through laboratory analyses, register data and vaccine supply.
Our work with knowledge, preparedness and infrastructure is integrated and mutually reinforcing. This applies to most of our work areas, with vaccination and pandemic management as just two of many examples.
The challenges we have to face are great and the opportunities to strengthen infection control in Norway and the world are many. Among the central challenges in Norway are maintaining good vaccination coverage for the many diseases we can prevent, monitoring vaccine effectiveness, detecting and managing small and medium-sized outbreaks throughout the year, preparing for the next pandemic, and dealing with the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, especially in hospitals and nursing homes. Climate change and the unstable world situation can and will also affect infection control. New technology can increase the dangers of bioterror and other threats, but also comes with great opportunities, especially when it comes to monitoring, diagnostics, vaccination and treatment of infectious diseases.
Knowledge
Our advice is based on the latest knowledge. This requires insight and scientific understanding that is generated from research, systematic research reviews and reports.
The division is actively involved in the entire chain up to a good knowledge base - from monitoring, research and knowledge summaries, to assessment, advice and dissemination of knowledge. The area is responsible for the national immunisation programmes (childhood, influenza and COVID-19 immunisation programmes), including advice, monitoring and vaccine supply. We work with several strategically important research topics within the vaccine field, antimicrobial resistance and characterisation of infectious agents. The division has a solid competence in applying and developing of methods in statistics, modelling, bioinformatics, microbiology, immunology and epidemiology related to infections and vaccines.
Our ambition is to be an infection control institute that builds on research in everything we do and combines research with other administrative tasks. We will build on research where possible, in our assessments and advice, while producing more high-quality research ourselves and taking part in leading international professional networks.
Preparedness
The division has responsibility for preparedness related to risk, prevention, detection and investigation of outbreaks of infectious diseases. This applies both to ongoing preparedness for minor outbreaks and for major incidents. We monitor the epidemiological situation nationally and participate in monitoring the international epidemiological situation. Our field epidemiology team helps the municipal health and care service with investigation, clarification and measures to stop outbreaks of infection.
The division has a national preparedness laboratory for highly pathogenic agents and agents that can be used in bioterror, with 24 hour preparedness.
We have three on-call duty officers who are also part of the preparedness:
- Infection control duty medical officer, for healthcare personnel
- Microbiological emergency duty officer
- National water helpline
Our ambition is to be an emergency response organization that is ready for small and large crises. We build on the lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic and many smaller outbreaks of infectious diseases when we further develop planning, organisation, competence, exercises, self-preparedness, cooperation agreements and communication systems.
Infrastructure
The Division for Infection Control is responsible for central infrastructure, including the central health registries within infection control (operation of MSIS, SYSVAK, BIVAK, NOIS, RAVN and data responsibility for NORM) as well as laboratories. The laboratories are responsible for national reference functions in medical microbiology for around 30 infectious agents and responsibility for carrying out investigations on behalf of the health authorities and other laboratories. The division also has an infrastructure related to vaccination and the immunisation programme with the vaccine supply with a large physical warehouse, as well as advanced high-resolution analysis methods.
Our ambition is to digitise and automate several of our processes and be at the forefront when it comes to adopting new technology at the right time, both among the agencies and partners in Norway and the public health institutes in Europe. This applies, among other things, to data collection, data quality assurance, monitoring, analysis, modelling, presentation and availability of health data and statistics, compilation of knowledge, preparation of reports and advice. Artificial intelligence will play a key role in this.
Collaboration
We work closely with the municipalities/municipal health service and other public actors, the specialist health service, academia, etc.