12 January 2012 – The Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSRS) strategy was developed by the WHO Regional Office for Africa in 1998.  The goal of the IDSR strategy is to develop sufficient surveillance and response capacities at each level of national health systems so that a flexible national disease surveillance system emerges.

The integrated mechanism views surveillance as a multi-disease approach and a common public service using similar structures, processes and resources. It builds a system using existing resources and all existing surveillance activities merge into a national surveillance system with the aim of making it more effective and efficient.

The communicable diseases surveillance, forecasting and response programme extended its technical support to the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan from 2 to 12 January 2012 to assess its existing diseases surveillance system and qualify it for the IDSRS implementation. The team successfully created a concrete road map for the implementation of the system in the country in phased manner.