In 2002, the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program (Tracking Program) to address the challenges in environmental health surveillance described by the Pew Environmental Commission (1). The report cited gaps in our understanding of how the environment affects our health and attributed these gaps to a dearth of surveillance data for environmental hazards, human exposures, and health effects.

The West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 demonstrated the importance of strong disease surveillance systems and the severe consequences of weak capacity to detect and respond to cases quickly. Challenges in the transmission and management of surveillance data were one factor that contributed to the delay in detecting and confirming the Ebola outbreak. To help address this challenge, we have collaborated with the U.S.

Under the CDC STD Surveillance Network (SSuN) Part B grant, WA DOH is testing eICR of sexually transmitted infections (STI) with a clinical partner. Existing standard vocabulary codes were identified to represent previously-identified information gaps, or the need for new codes or concepts was identified.

Objective:

Early warning surveillance (EWS) is a key factor in the fight against tropical infectious diseases(1). However, the process of carrying out EWS is complex as it involves several actors and requires the use of diverse human, material and technological resources for data collection, analysis, and diffusion(2). Modern EWS systems make use of state of the art technologies and technics which require much financial input and adequate technological expertise for the users. More so, the culture and habits of users in DCs make it very difficult to run such EWS systems in this milieu.