scholarly journals Molecular diagnostics in South Africa and challenges in the establishment of a molecular laboratory in developing countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (03) ◽  
pp. 236-243
Author(s):  
Ashika Singh-Moodley ◽  
Husna Ismail ◽  
Olga Perovic
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Molecular Techniques ◽  
Infection Prevention And Control ◽  
Phenotypic Methods ◽  
And Control

The laboratory plays a significant role in public health surveillance, outbreak investigation and infection prevention and control strategies. Microbiology laboratories are moving towards incorporating molecular biology techniques for the surveillance and identification of pathogens causing infectious diseases as well as the genotypic characterisation of these organisms. These methods are accurate, rapid, reliable, and provide a wealth of information that are not available using conventional phenotypic methods. However, establishing such a laboratory can be challenging in developing countries due to poor infrastructure, the lack of funding and the required expertise. This manuscript discusses the essential issues that need to be addressed when establishing a molecular microbiology laboratory and the usefulness of molecular techniques in public health surveillance and outbreaks in developing countries. Molecular data on South African findings obtained from surveillance and outbreak studies are also presented in this manuscript.

scholarly journals VISION 2035 PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE IN INDIA

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Blanchard ◽  
Reynold Washington ◽  
Marissa Becker ◽  
N Vasanthakumar ◽  
K Madan Gopal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Health Systems Strengthening ◽  
And Control

NITI Aayog’s mandate is to provide strategic directions to the various sectors of the Indian economy. In line with this mandate, the Health Vertical released a set of four working papers compiled in a volume entitled ‘Health Systems for New India: Building Blocks – Potential Pathways to Reform’ during November 2019. “India’s Public Health Surveillance by 2035” is a continuation of the work on Health Systems Strengthening. It contributes by suggesting mainstreaming of surveillance by making individual electronic health records the basis for surveillance.Public Health Surveillance (PHS) cuts across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of care. Surveillance is an important Public Health function. It is an essential action for disease detection, prevention, and control. Surveillance is ‘Information for Action’. This paper is a joint effort of the Health vertical, NITI Aayog, and the Institute for Global Public Health, University of Manitoba, Canada, with contributions from technical experts from the Government of India, States, and International agencies. In 2035, • India’s Public Health Surveillance will be a predictive, responsive, integrated, and tiered system of disease and health surveillance that is inclusive of Prioritised, emerging, and re-emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases and conditions. • Surveillance will be primarily based on de-identified (anonymised) individual-level patient information that emanates from health care facilities, laboratories, and other sources. • Public Health Surveillance will be governed by an adequately resourced effective administrative and technical structure and will ensure that it serves the public good. • India will provide regional and global leadership in managing events that constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Multiple disease outbreaks have prompted India to proactively respond with prevention and control measures. These actions are based on information from public health surveillance. India was able to achieve many successes in the past. Smallpox was eradicated and polio was eliminated. India has been able to reduce HIV incidence and deaths and advance and accelerate TB elimination efforts. Many outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, acute encephalitis syndromes, acute febrile illnesses, diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases have been promptly detected, identified and managed. These successes are a result of effective community-based, facility-based, and health system-based surveillance. The program response involved multiple sectors, including public and private health care systems and civil society.

Food Safety

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig W. Hedberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Food Contamination ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Hazard Identification ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Foodborne Disease ◽  
And Control

This chapter describes food safety, in the context of both specific food products and entire food systems. The chapter describes various elements of food safety, how unsafe food causes adverse health effects, and what measures can be taken to prevent and control foodborne illness. The chapter emphasizes that public health surveillance for foodborne disease is the key to hazard identification. In particular, it emphasizes the role of public health surveillance as a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of our food safety systems, and to guide the development of prevention and control measures. The chapter describes in detail preventing food contamination, controlling amplification or spread of foodborne disease agents, and reducing or eliminating hazards.

scholarly journals Implementation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) in Swaziland

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siphiwe M Shongwe-Gama ◽  
Dr. Thulani Maphosa ◽  
Phinda Khumalo ◽  
Vusie Lokotfwako ◽  
Nhlanhla Nhlabatsi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Facilities ◽  
Health Systems Strengthening ◽  
Notification System ◽  
Surveillance And Response ◽  
And Control

Objective: To strengthen public health surveillance and monitor implementation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response in the Kingdom of Swaziland.Introduction: Swaziland adopted the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy in 2010 to strengthen Public Health Surveillance (PHS) that fulfills International Health Regulations (2005) and the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). This strategy allows the Ministry of Health (MoH), Epidemiology and Disease Control Unit (EDCU) to monitor, prevent and control priority diseases in the country. We used a health systems strengthening approach to pilot an intervention model for IDSR implementation at five hospitals in Swaziland over a pilot phase of three months.Methods: Our intervention included cross-country IDSR trainings, sensitizations and onsite trainings targeting national and regional health teams for over 250 health workers. The EDCU developed and disseminated standardized case definitions for health facilities (HFs) to detect, confirm and report priority conditions. Trained health care workers were tasked to cascade knowledge sharing and sensitization about IDSR with their HFs during in-service trainings. The facilities were to use IDSR standard case definition as guidelines for diagnosing and reporting cases; submit monthly reports on all priority conditions to Health Management Information System (HMIS) and intensify reporting through immediate disease notification system (IDNS) for all notifiable conditions. Indicators and monitoring tools for disease surveillance and response as recommended by the technical guidelines for IDSR in the African region were developed. The intervention was evaluated at five purposively selected high-volume referral hospitals (attending to ≥1500 to 15000 outpatient visits per month), which also have maternity services.Structured questionnaires in the form of a monitoring tool, checklists and observations were used to collect data. Quantitatively, monthly reports submitted by the five facilities to HMIS were reviewed and analyzed for completeness and timeliness. Clinic supervisors were identified from outpatient, inpatient, maternity and laboratory departments as key informants to explore successes and challenges of IDSR implementation. Additionally, IDSR officers visited health facilities and observed the registers and reporting forms used to report IDSR priority conditions and the availability of IDSR guidelines.Results: The five HFs submitted monthly reports from June to August 2017 with a calculated completeness of 80% in June 2017, 60% in July and 40% in August. Timeliness was calculated was at 20% in June, 20% in July and 40% in August. IDSR officers observed that all five HFs document cases of priority diseases in registers during consultations and use daily tally sheets. However, it was observed that diseases reported through the immediate diseases notification system were not all documented in the morbidity registers and vice versa. Health workers reported to be unaware about all diseases that require immediate notification to trigger investigation, hence some disease like perinatal deaths were never notified through the IDNS system during the period of evaluation. All five hospitals reported not utilizing the standard cases definitions provided to identify and report IDSR priority diseases.Conclusions: The proportion of completeness and timeliness from the five HFs during the evaluation period was low compared to WHO recommended standards of >= 80% from all HFs. This therefore, poses challenges in monitoring and responding to the priority conditions as per IDSR standards and recommendations. All five hospitals reported not utilizing the standard cases definitions to identify and report IDSR priority diseases and this poses challenges in comparison of data across sites, monitoring priority diseases, conditions and events and also identifying the alert or epidemic thresholds. There is need to capacitate more health workers on IDSR for Swaziland to strengthen PHS and be able to prevent and control public health threats timely.

scholarly journals Strengthening public health surveillance and response using the health systems strengthening agenda in developing countries

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. S5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Nsubuga ◽  
Okey Nwanyanwu ◽  
John N Nkengasong ◽  
David Mukanga ◽  
Murray Trostle
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Public Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Surveillance ◽  
Health Systems Strengthening ◽  
Surveillance And Response
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