In Rwanda, communicable diseases represent about 90% of all reported medical consultations in health centers. The country has often faced epidemics including emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. To enhance its preparedness to identify and respond to outbreaks and prevent epidemics, the Government of Rwanda has developed and deployed a nationwide electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response system (eIDSR) using mobile technology. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has funded Voxiva to build, operate and support this program. The design of eIDSR system was completed in November 2011, and then 1524 end-users were progressively trained for the national roll out of the system until April 2013. All 521 health facilities in Rwanda have been trained and are currently using the electronic system (100 % of national coverage since April 2013).
Objective
There are important lessons learned from the successful implementation of this national electronic system and this abstract outlines those lessons.