"The Network" Newsletter, Part 3: Syndromic Surveillance in Developing Countries – Literature Search

by Larissa May (MD, MS), Chair, ISDS Education and Training Committee

This article is a part of a series that will be published in the Global Outreach newsletter, "The Network." A pdf version of "The Network" is coming soon!

The commonly established concept of syndromic surveillance in developed regions encompasses the use of pre-diagnostic information in a near real time fashion for further investigation for public health action. Syndromic surveillance is widely used in North America and Europe, and is typically thought of as a highly complex, technology driven automated tool for early detection of outbreaks. Nonetheless, low technology applications of syndromic surveillance are already being used worldwide to augment traditional surveillance, and may improve compliance with the revised International Health Regulations, which require notification of infectious diseases of international health importance, even if the causative agent is unknown.

To review work that is being done in syndromic surveillance in developing areas, we have compiled a collection of peer-reviewed articles and other resources on the use of syndromic surveillance systems in these regions. For the purposes of this list, we have excluded citations from North America and Europe, which as high resource regions use complex, highly automated and technology-intensive systems which have been in existence for a much longer period than the systems being used in less resource rich nations.

Visit the ISDS wiki to view the literature search