ESIDA

Epidemiological Surveillance for Infectious Diseases in sub-Saharan Africa

ESIDA - Strengthening Epidemiological Surveillance for Infectious Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa

In countries with limited capacity for epidemiological surveillance, disease outbreaks often go unnoticed. As a result, early detection and timely outbreak response is difficult. This is a challenge that particularly affects resource-restricted regions, such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The growing digital infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and advances in communication technologies, particularly in the mobile-phone sector, hold considerable potential for improving local monitoring systems that allow for more efficient and timely information exchange. For example, the collection of health data through mobile devices and the use of Open Data as a new dimension of traditional epidemiological surveillance systems open new avenues for research and development. However, they also require the joint effort of qualified actors across borders and research disciplines.

The overall objective of the ESIDA project is to connect skills, methods and data from different research disciplines and information sources in order to design new approaches for data-driven health information and surveillance systems for early detection and control of emerging infectious disease outbreaks. The anticipated outcome is a pre-prototype electronic health information and surveillance system that aims to strengthen epidemiological surveillance in Tanzania and help alert local public health actors at an early stage of an outbreak. In the long term, the ESIDA system could be extended to the member states of the East African Community to support efforts in local field diagnostics as part of an existing national laboratory project.

ESIDA builds upon existing networks of German and African partners and aims to strengthen international cross-disciplinary collaboration in research and education involving epidemiology, clinical research, biosecurity, public health, environmental sciences, and computer and data sciences.

 

Project Focus
Research and networking project to strengthen Epidemiological Surveillance for Infectious Diseases in sub-Saharan Africa

Target Region
Tanzania, East African Community (EAC)

Project Partners

  • Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM)
    • Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Project coordinator)
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg)
    • Department of Health Sciences
    • Department of Computer Science
    • Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management Research and Transfer Centre
  • University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)
    • Institute of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology
  • University of Hamburg (UHH)
    • Institute of Plant Science and Microbiology, Department for Microbiology and Biotechnology
  • Nelson-Mandela Institution for Science and Technology (NM-AIST)
    • Africa Centre for Research, Agricultural Advancement, Teaching Excellence and Sustainability (CREATES)

 

Contact
Juliane Bönecke Scientific Associate / Project Manager
Department of Health Sciences
T +49 40 428 75-6362
juliane.boenecke (at) haw-hamburg (dot) de

Duration
-
Budget
398.607
Unit
Faculty of Life Sciences Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science

ESIDA – Overall structure

The ESIDA project integrates seven modules with specific research objectives:

Module 1: ESIDA collaboration and networking

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Module 2: eHealth strategies in epidemiological surveillance

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Module 3: Potentials of Open Data sources in epidemiological surveillance

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Module 4: ESIDA data management

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Module 5: Indicator-based risk assessment for early outbreak detection

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Module 6: ESIDA pilot study

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Module 7: ESIDA decision support system

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