From December 17-21, 2018, the Connecting Organization for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS) network members visited Tanzania to learn experiences, good practices and challenges on the use of digital technology in event-based surveillance (EBS).
The event brought together sixteen (16) individuals from CORDS’ sixmember networks. They visited Ngorongoro, which is one of the districts in Tanzania where AfyaDatahas been deployed to enhance EBS. They toured the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where humans, wild and domestic animals live harmoniously.
They also visited Ngorongoro District Headquarters, Ololosokwan ward and Njoroi village in Ngorongoro district, which forms part of the cross-border ecosystem shared between Tanzania and Kenya.
During the event, AfyaData designing, development, functionalities and deployment strategies were shared and demonstrated to members.
The members had opportunity to learn the set-up of community radio to enhance public health information exchange between community members and specialists at different levels. To learn the use of AfyaDatain EBS in the district, they interacted with officials responsible for human and animal disease surveillance at different levels includingCommunity Health Reporters and community leaders.
As we go to press, the experiences, good practices and challenges learnt on EBS are being considered in the near-future strategies to strengthen EBS in the communities of the cross-border ecosystems in the network member countries.
CORDS is a Non-Government Organization comprised of six international member networks in 28 countries working to reduce and prevent the spread of diseases by exchanging information and best practicesamong regional disease surveillance networks across the world in order to improve their capacity to prevent, detect, and control the spread of epidemics. Its network members include: the Asia Partnership on Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (APEIR), the East African Integrated Disease Surveillance Network (EAIDSNet), theMekong Basin Disease Surveillance (MBDS), the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance (MECIDS), the SACIDS Foundation for One Health (formally known as Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance), and the Southeast European Center for Surveillance and Control of Infectious Diseases (SECID).
