title: Towards one health disease surveillance: the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance approach.
abstract: Africa has the highest burden of infectious diseases in the world and yet the least capacity  for its risk management. It has therefore become increasingly important to search for 'fit-for- purpose' approaches to infectious disease surveillance and thereby targeted disease control.  The fact that the majority of human infectious diseases are originally of animal origin means  we have to consider One Health (OH) approaches which require inter-sectoral collaboration  for custom-made infectious disease surveillance in the endemic settings of Africa. A baseline  survey was conducted to assess the current status and performance of human and animal  health surveillance systems and subsequently a strategy towards OH surveillance system was  developed. The strategy focused on assessing the combination of participatory epidemiological  approaches and the deployment of mobile technologies to enhance the effectiveness of disease  alerts and surveillance at the point of occurrence, which often lies in remote areas. We selected  three study sites, namely the Ngorongoro, Kagera River basin and Zambezi River basin  ecosystems. We have piloted and introduced  the next-generation Android mobile phones  running the EpiCollect application developed by Imperial College to aid geo-spatial and  clinical data capture and transmission of this data from the field to the remote  Information  Technology (IT) servers at the research hubs for storage, analysis, feedback and reporting. We  expect that the combination of participatory epidemiology and technology will significantly  improve OH disease surveillance in southern Africa.
authors: Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance, Morogoro. ekarimu@yahoo.co.uk.
authors: Esron D
authors: ED
authors: Karimuribo
authors: Kuya
authors: K
authors: Sayalel
authors: Eric
authors: E
authors: Beda
authors: Nick
authors: N
authors: Short
authors: Philemon
authors: P
authors: Wambura
authors: Leonard G
authors: LG
authors: Mboera
authors: Lughano J M
authors: LJ
authors: Kusiluka
authors: Mark M
authors: MM
authors: Rweyemamu
mesh_terms: D017954:Africa South of the Sahara; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D000835:Animals, Wild; D040421:Cell Phone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003906:Developing Countries; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000662:veterinary*; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D015980:Public Health Practice; D062486:Public Health Surveillance; D015047:Zoonoses