An integrated surveillance system for infectious disease in rural China: generating evidence for early detection of disease epidemics in resource-poor settings.

Principal investigator: Hengjin Dong, IPH Heidelberg

Funding: FP7-HEALTH-2009-single-stage

Partners:
Karolinska Institutet (the “Coordinator”), Sweden
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
Fudan University, China
University of Heidelberg, Germany

Project description:
A crucial goal of infectious disease surveillance is the early detection of epidemics, which is essential for disease control. In China, the current surveillance system is based on confirmed case reports and only covers notifiable diseases.In rural China, it is not practical for health units to perform laboratory tests to confirm disease and people are more likely to get 'old' and emerging infectious diseases due to poor living conditions and closer contacts with wild animals and poultry. Syndromic surveillance which collects non-specific syndromes before diagnosis has great advantages in promoting the early detection of epidemics and reducing the necessities of disease confirmation. It will be especially effective for surveillance in resource poor settings. The objective is to improve the early detection of epidemics in rural China by integrating syndromic surveillance with case report surveillance system. 

This involves three main phases: (1) the development of an integrated surveillance system; (2) the implementation of this system; (3) the evaluation of this system. 

This project will contribute to knowledge, experience and evidence with regard to the development and implementation of an integrated surveillance system for the early warning of epidemics in similar settings. This is an intervention study. The intervention tool will be an integrated surveillance system, combining syndromic surveillance with the existing case report surveillance in four selected counties in China. In order to evaluate the early warning capability of the new added syndromic surveillance, the timelines and validity of the alert signals triggered from syndromic surveillance will be compared against those from corresponding case report surveillance (as a reference) for the same region and time period. The acceptability, feasibility and economic evaluation of the whole integrated surveillance system will be conducted in a before and after study design.

Status: completed

Contact: Hengjin Dong (dong@uni-heidelberg.de)