AFRO IDSR Course 2: Identifying, recording, reporting and analysis of priority diseases, conditions and events

Course information

The full online Training Package will consist of 5 courses in English, French and Portuguese and will be available in 2022.

Guidance for AFRO target audiences: Which IDSR course should I take?

Course 2 Overview: Course 2 describes and provides guidance on how to identify priority diseases, conditions and public health events using standard case definitions (Indicator Based Surveillance (IBS) and Event Based Surveillance (EBS) systems. It gives step by step methods of how to use EBS system for alerts detection, triaging and verification to detect public health events. The course further provides a description of the procedures which need to be followed when planning for improvements of surveillance and response activities in your catchment area and emphasizes the role of laboratory in surveillance and response. Course 2 also describes the procedures and tools for reporting priority diseases, conditions and events through all the levels of the health systems within the required timelines and explains how to receive surveillance data and analyse it by time, place and person using electronic or manual methods. Furthermore, the course describes steps for data interpretation and how to use data for decision making in the form of public health actions.

Information from this course can be applied at the national, district, health facility and community levels.

Course 2 has been developed in order to ensure the successful implementation of the IDSR Strategy 2020 - 2030 and the IDSR Technical Guidelines 3rd Edition 2019: Booklets One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six, including Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‑19).

A Participant's Guide is available for Course 2 here. Participant Guides contain the course content and learning activities and are provided for reference purposes during the online training and for further study offline.

We suggest that you download the Technical Guidelines 3rd Edition and the Participants Guide before you start the course.

Course 2 consists of 3 modules:

Module 1: Identify and record cases of priority diseases, conditions and events
Part 1: Principles of Indicator-based Surveillance
Part 2: Application of Event-Based Surveillance

Module 2: Report priority diseases, conditions and events
Part 1: Procedures for reporting
Part 2: Measures to improve reporting

Module 3: Analyse and interpret data:
Part 1: Collecting and organizing data
Part 2: Analysis by Time
Part 3: Analysis by Place and Person

Learning objectives: By the end of Course 2 participants should be able to describe and understand:

• How to use standard case definitions (Indicator-based Surveillance) and Event-Based Surveillance system to detect priority diseases, conditions and public health events.
• The procedures required to plan for improvements of surveillance and response activities at all levels of the health system and demonstrate the use of laboratory to confirm priority diseases.
• The procedures and tools for reporting priority diseases, conditions and events through all the levels of the health systems.
• The procedures and tools for data collection, analysis and interpretation.
• How to use data for decision making in the form of public health actions.

Course duration: 3.5 hours

Certificates:

• A Confirmation of Participation will be issued to participants who have completed 100% of the learning materials in Course 2.

• A Record of Achievement will be awarded to those participants who have earned at least 80% of the maximum number of points from the quizzes in Course 2. Participants will be able to have an unlimited number of attempts at these quizzes in order to achieve the 80%.

• Participants who receive a Record of Achievement can also download an Open Badge for this course. Click here to learn how.