Monrovia, 10 October 2015: At a sub-regional surveillance meeting, held on 5-6 October 2015 in Monrovia, health experts from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone discussed a regional surveillance strategy for Phase 3 of the Ebola response. This entails transitioning from a strategy exclusive to Ebola to one designed to detect Ebola as one of a range of notifiable diseases under the Infectious Diseases Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system.

Participants at the meeting reviewed existing reporting procedures and explored ways to integrate and streamline such procedures across the various government and international agencies into a single IDSR system.

While acknowledging the technical and financial support from WHO and partners for the fight against Ebola, Liberia’s Deputy Minister of Health, and Chief Medical Officer, Dr Francis Kateh, said that a collective and coordinated action by all stakeholders was imperative to ensure an effective surveillance and response system.

The WHO Representative for Liberia, Dr Alex Gasasira, noted that stakeholders should already be working on transitioning to the IDSR system. He reiterated WHO’s continued support for strengthening national human resources to effectively respond to epidemics.

Participants recognized the importance of community participation in reporting suspected cases of disease and deaths in order for surveillance and response measures in any future outbreak to be effective. 

Special remarks were also made by the UN Special Envoy on Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro who emphasized the need for an effective surveillance system and reorganization to bring back a durable and better health system with prompt delivery of medical and emergency services.

Represented at the meeting were the Ministries of Health from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, and WHO.

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For more information, please contact:

Technical:

Dr Mahmoud Nuha, Email:  hamidn [at] who.int ( )

Communications: 
Luwaga Liliane
Email: lluwagal [at] who.int ( )