The surveillance, forecasting and response programme seeks to achieve effective disease prevention and control by developing norms and standards, guidance and public health tools.
Although some progress has been made, scaled-up efforts aimed at monitoring the spread of disease, protecting vulnerable groups and providing universal access to quality care and treatment are needed to retain this momentum and make a lasting difference.
Figure 1. Public health surveillance classically comprises six core activities (detection, registration, confirmation, reporting, analysis and feedback) that are made possible through four support activities (communication, training, supervision and resource provision). Source: Communicable disease control in emergencies: A field manual. WHO
Goals
The overall goal is to contribute to reducing the incidence and prevalence of communicable diseases in the Region. High validity and good comparability of communicable disease data from Member States are imperative to reaching this goal. The specific programme goals are to:
strengthen national early warning, surveillance, and response systems and epidemic preparedness
establish a regional capacity for public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC) that could occur within the Region in order to implement the International Health Regulations 2005
provide prompt and appropriate technical support to Member States during outbreaks of epidemic-prone diseases that occur within or threaten countries in the Region
disseminate weekly updates on current events that might constitute PHEIC through its weekly epidemiological monitor
promote infection control programmes at the country level
provide a forum for exchange of information, experiences and lessons learnt related to outbreak detection and field response to outbreaks
support the establishment of centres of excellence in the field of epidemiology, surveillance, infection control and laboratory diagnosis of emerging infections
promote research on emerging and re-emerging diseases.
Related programmes
International Health Regulations (IHR)
Global Alert and Response (GAR)
Emergency preparedness and humanitarian action
Operational research in tropical and other communicable diseases
