Introduction:
The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) developed the first technical
guidelines (TG) and began to implement the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR)
strategy since 1998. The aim of this study was to assess the progress made in the implementation
of the Regional Strategy for IDSR 2020-2030 as well as the performance of the core and support
functions of the Member States IDSR system to determine its capacity for early detection of and
response to public health emergencies including infectious disease outbreaks.
Methods:
This was a cross-sectional retrospective study which assessed the performance of the IDSR
implementation across the WHO AFRO 47 Member States. Data was collected using a structured
online questionnaire designed in the KOBO-collect application in English and French. The self-administered
questionnaire was sent by email to all the 47 IDSR Focal Points in the WHO country
offices, who involved the heads of disease surveillance units of the ministries of health to complete
the questionnaire. Data was reviewed and validated by Member States. Excel and R were used to
clean and analyse the data.
