Category: Surveillance

The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. There are different types of strategies to meet the surveillance. 1) Sentinel surveillance systems consist of health facilities or laboratories in selected locations that report all cases of a certain condition to indicate trends in the entire population. Sample reporting is a good way to use limited resources to monitor suspected health problems. 2) Household surveys can be used to monitor diseases if the surveys are consistent and repeated periodically. The surveys are population-based; that is, they select a random sample of household’s representative of the whole population. 3) Laboratory-based surveillance is used to detect and monitor infectious diseases. 4) Integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) strategies bring together data from health facilities and laboratories. It is a critical tool to prevent outbreaks of diseases and develop appropriate, rapid responses when diseases begin to spread.