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Emphasizing that strong laboratory systems are the backbone of effective surveillance, Wazed called for enhancing investment in sustainable diagnostic capacities.
“The future of health security in our region depends on sustainable investments in surveillance and laboratory capacities, timely data-sharing, and cross-sectoral partnerships,” the Regional Director said.
Officials from member countries heading surveillance for epidemic and pandemic-prone diseases, public health laboratories, national public health operations center, surveillance in other sectors such as animal health, environment, and meteorology, and those responsible for communicating events under International Health Regulations, and experts and partners, participated in the meeting.
They discussed priority actions to enhance collaboration among in-country surveillance stakeholders across sectors, and improve international information sharing and cross-border collaboration in the context of amended International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005).
Decision making during pandemics; epidemics; climate change driven health emergencies like vector-borne and waterborne diseases; other threats from human-animal-ecosystem interface – zoonosis, food-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and health threats caused by disasters and humanitarian crisis, require multi-sectoral solutions.
To support countries operationalize the concept of multi-source surveillance, WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia developed a regional manual “Informing Public Health Decision-Making with Multisource Collaborative Surveillance: A Step-by- Step Approach.” Using the manual, Indonesia and Nepal have initiated implementation of multisource collaborative surveillance (MSCS). More countries in the Region are planning roll-out of MSCS. In line with the approaches of MSCS, India has proposed creation of a South-East Asia Network of transboundary collaborative surveillance, which is expected to be discussed with member countries later this year.
The MSCS approach is critical as gathering and synthesizing information from different sources are not always easy. The systems and data are owned by different surveillance stakeholders within and beyond the health sector, and mechanisms and procedures are not always in place to timely and effectively share and synthesize data and information from various sources.
The participants discussed opportunities to adopt innovation and enablers to strengthen early warning surveillance systems and public health intelligence, including the roles of genomic surveillance and wastewater surveillance as a part of multi-source collaborative surveillance. They discussed priority actions for the development of national action plans to guide the governance, implementation, and sustainability of genomic surveillance systems as a multisectoral approach.
“We must continue to embrace innovation and stronger regional collaboration,” the Regional Director said reiterating WHO’s commitment and her vision to promote regional and multi-sectoral collaboration, including among One Health stakeholders, and of using innovation to improve public health in the WHO South-East Asia Region.
