Need of surveillance response systems to combat Ebola outbreaks and other emerging infectious diseases in African countries

There is growing concern in Sub-Saharan Africa about the spread of the Ebola virus disease(EVD),formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever,and the public health burden that it ensues.Since 1976,there have been 885,343 suspected and laboratory confirmed cases of EVD and the disease has claimed 2,512 cases and 932 fatality in West Africa.There are certain requirements that must be met when responding to EVD outbreaks and this process could incur certain challenges.For the purposes of this paper,five have been identified:(i)the deficiency in the development and implementation of surveillance response systems against Ebola and others infectious disease outbreaks in Africa;(ii)the lack of education and knowledge resulting in an EVD outbreak triggering panic,anxiety,psychosocial trauma,isolation and dignity impounding,stigmatisation,community ostracism and resistance to associated socio-ecological and public health consequences;(iii)limited financial resources,human technical capacity and weak community and national health system operational plans for prevention and control responses,practices and management;(iv)inadequate leadership and coordination;and(v)the lack of development of new strategies,tools and approaches,such as improved diagnostics and novel therapies including vaccines which can assist in preventing,controlling and containing Ebola outbreaks as well as the spread of the disease.Hence,there is an urgent need to develop and implement an active early warning alert and surveillance response system for outbreak response and control of emerging infectious diseases.Understanding the unending risks of transmission dynamics and resurgence is essential in implementing rapid effective response interventions tailored to specific local settings and contexts.Therefore,the following actions are recommended:(i)national and regional inter-sectorial and trans-disciplinary surveillance response systems that include early warnings,as well as critical human resources development,must be quickly adopted by allied ministries and organisations in African countries in epidemic and pandemic responses;(ii)harnessing all stakeholders commitment and advocacy in sustained funding,collaboration,communication and networking including community participation to enhance a coordinated responses,as well as tracking and prompt case management to combat challenges;(iii)more research and development in new drug discovery and vaccines;and(iv)understanding the involvement of global health to promote the establishment of public health surveillance response systems with functions of early warning,as well as monitoring and evaluation in upholding research-action programmes and innovative interventions.

Are surveillance response systems enough to effectively combat and contain the Ebola outbreak?

The epidemic of the Ebola virus infection in West Africa in 2014 has become a worldwide concern.Due to the nature of the disease,which has an extremely high mortality potential,this outbreak has received much attention from researchers and public health workers.An article entitled“Need of surveillance response systems to combat Ebola outbreaks and other emerging infectious diseases in African countries,”published in the journal Infectious Diseases of Poverty in August 2014,concluded that a good surveillance system to monitor disease transmission dynamics is essential and needs to be implemented to combat the outbreak.Issues regarding the limitation of the passive surveillance system have been raised by Professor Viroj Wiwanitkit,who emphasizes the need for an active disease detection system such as mass screening in this letter to editor.The different function between passive and active surveillance system in combating the disease outbreak has been agreed upon by Ernest Tambo et al.There have also been discussions between Wiwanitkit and Tambo et al.on the following issues:(i)the extreme resource limitations in outbreak areas,(ii)new technology to improve the available systems.Further recommendations echoed in this letter to editor by Wiwanitkit,who outlined the research priorities on the development of appropriate combined disease monitoring systems and good policy to allocate available tools and technology in resource-limited settings for epidemic scenarios.The journal’s editor,Professor Xiao-Nong Zhou,has therefore collated all parts of these discussions between authors in this letter to editor paper,in order to further promote research on a combined active and passive system to combat the present extending Ebola outbreak.