Polio: E-surve technology improves surveillance in Lake Chad Basin

The introduction of an electronic surveillance (e-Surve) approach for polio is revolutionizing surveillance for the disease across the Lake Chad Basin, Daily Trust has learnt. The e-Surve approach which was introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) involves the use of a smartphone application to ensure that health workers know what symptoms they should be […]

The introduction of an electronic surveillance (e-Surve) approach for polio is revolutionizing surveillance for the disease across the Lake Chad Basin, Daily Trust has learnt.

The e-Surve approach which was introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) involves the use of a smartphone application to ensure that health workers know what symptoms they should be looking for and how to report suspected cases of the vaccine-preventable disease.

Disease surveillance and notification officers use the application to guide their conversations with health workers, then send the results of the questionnaire to a central database, where the data can be analysed and sorted by health district.

According to a report by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) of WHO, unlike in the past when answers were written in  notebooks, and time spent emailing them to a central database, with the introduction of e-Surve, answers are input directly into an app, allowing for quick, accurate, and up-to-date data collection.

Dr. Namadi Lawal, a surveillance officer with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) said the approach helped him receive far more accurate information in real time, making his work to defeat the polio virus more efficient. NPHCDA had depended on the on paper-based recording methods for years.

He said: “e-Surve is such a wonderful innovation. I can only imagine how much more accurate data I would have collected in a fast and effective manner if I had adopted this approach long time ago.”

Speaking during a presentation of a dashboard of e-Surve  at the African Regional Certification Commission in Nigeria recently, Minister of Health,  Prof Isaac Adewole described the approach as a remarkable progress saying “it shows where we can actually reach for surveillance”.

The innovation is also important in preventing outbreaks. As at May 2018, about 18,840 active surveillance visits to health facilities had been made using e-Surve technology,  as a result, over 3,000 suspected cases of vaccine-preventable diseases – previously unreported from health facilities were identified and investigated, says Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).