The Centre for Health Protection has extended its sentinel surveillance system to more than 50 elderly homes to enhance detection of communicable disease outbreaks.

From today, surveillance data collected from the homes, together with interpretive notes, will be uploaded to the centre's website every Wednesday afternoon under the "Sentinel Surveillance" section.

The centre said participating homes will report statistics on fever and acute diarrhoea cases weekly. This will facilitate detection of community-wide increases in acute febrile illnesses such as influenza, and acute gastroenteritis among the institutionalised elderly population.