Integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR)

Why it matters

Before integration, each disease programme ran its own forms and reporting lines, and facility staff carried the burden of all of them. IDSR combines them so that one trained workforce, one set of case definitions and one reporting cycle serve all priority diseases, and it is the main way countries in the region build the surveillance capacity the International Health Regulations require [1].

Key points

• The current technical guidelines are the third edition, published in 2019 and prepared by the WHO Health Emergencies Programme with the region's disease surveillance programmes [1].
• Facilities report priority diseases on a routine weekly cycle, and epidemic prone diseases and unusual events immediately [1].
• Digitising the report improves it. In Sierra Leone, weekly IDSR reports from 2017 to 2023 averaged 97% completeness and 100% timeliness after mobile reporting, and case based data capture rose from 40% in 2019 to 95% in 2023 [2].
• Digitising the form still leaves someone counting the register. Coding cases in the clinical record removes the count.

In Moana

MOANA Surveillance codes notifiable events in the clinical record at source, so the counts behind a weekly IDSR return come from patient records rather than tally sheets.

Sources

1. Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response Technical Guidelines, Booklet One, third edition, WHO Regional Office for Africa, 2019
2. Implementing electronic IDSR at health facilities using mobile Android devices: a case study from Sierra Leone, DHIS2 Annual Conference abstract (Magoba), 2024