Community and event-based surveillance

Abstract

The Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM) system is well established up to the health post level. However, the existing surveillance system detects cases at health facility level when patients seek treatment. There hasn`t been a strong surveillance system at community level; most outbreaks are neither being promptly detected nor timely responded. Now adays, disease travel far and fast which underscore the importance of robust surveillance system at community level. The concept and practice of the Community and Event Based Surveillance (CEBS) are not new in the Ethiopian PHEM system but, there were not guidelines that clearly spell out the implementation of CEBS in the country despite such surveillance system play an indispensable role to improve early detection and notification of any public health threat and events in the community.