Researchers push greater infectious disease controls in Tokyo ahead of 2020 Summer Olympics

Researchers from Harvard University urged government officials this week to develop new measures to detect and prevent the spread of infectious diseases, like dengue fever, in Tokyo ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics.

In a report published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, the researchers — led by Naoki Yanagisawa of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — referred to a 2014 incident where dengue fever unexpectedly broke out in Japan’s capital. It is a potentially fatal disease fueled by mosquitos, and the sheer number of people from all over the world who converge for events like the Olympics means the possibility of spread would be alarming if unchecked.

“We specifically applied the FMEA framework to health preparedness for dengue infection for Tokyo 2020,” the researchers wrote. “However, this framework could be expanded and tailored to other diseases or mass gatherings as well. Given that dengue was introduced, chikungunya and Zika could be problematic as well. Although an outbreak has not been recognized in Japan to date, there is always the possibility that these infections would cause an outbreak.”

FMEA stands for failure mode and effects analysis. The researchers used it to test both vulnerability and resilience in Japan’s current preparations, as well as to design ways to strengthen them. In all, they found 20 critical points for disease detection, assessment, and communication with patients. Current controls for dengue detection, they noted, are robust, but there have been communication failures, as well as some failure to diagnose cases accurately. These could be helped, in their view, by more training seminars.