Community Based Surveillance-SPEED

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the severe human, economic, and social toll of global health crises, emphasizing the urgent need for coordinated efforts to strengthen health systems and mobilize resources for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. In response, the Pandemic Fund (PF) was established to provide additional, dedicated resources aimed at incentivizing countries to increase investments, enhance coordination among partners, and serve as a platform for advocacy. The PF launched the first round of funding in February 2023 by issuing a call for Expressions of Interest. Ministry of Health and Population, in coordination with Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development and Ministry of Water Supply, along with implementing partners World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) applied project Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness for Early Detection in Nepal (SPEED) and was allocated a fund of USD 18.8 million for a period of 2024-2026. The cabinet endorsed the implementation of the project on 2081/01/06 BS. Project SPEED is designed to align with Nepal’s national and regional health strategies, focusing on improving health security and emergency response. It builds on recommendations from evaluations conducted in 2022 and 2008, which identified areas needing improvement, such as surveillance, early warning systems, laboratory systems, and workforce strengthening. The project represents a joint effort between the government and key partners. EDCD manages several surveillance systems, including the EWARS, drinking water quality surveillance, climate-sensitive disease surveillance (CSDS), SORMAS, a toll-free call center, and media monitoring. EWARS operates through 118 sentinel sites, monitoring six priority diseases and 26 other infectious diseases and public health events. SORMAS was piloted in select areas of Sudurpaschim and Gandaki Province, and is now being rapidly expanded nationwide to the municipal level, with plans to reach health facilities. This program, supported by the Pandemic Fund, will involve systematic disease detection and reporting by health facilities and the community, led by local governments.

Objectives

Community-based integrated disease surveillance is expected to strengthen local level capacity in disease notification, verification as well as rapid response as deemed necessary.

The objectives of this initiative are to:

• Support local government in establishing, monitoring and strengthening community based integrated disease surveillance system at local level
• Strengthen linkages of community based integrated disease surveillance with the overall integrated disease surveillance system including hospital-based sentinel surveillance system, surveillance outbreak response management and analysis system (SORMAS) and the social listening and media monitoring system.

• Program Duration:  2024 to 2026.
• Study Team: Dr. Janak Thapa, Ms. Pragya Pokharel, Mr. Raj Kumar Sangroula, Mr. Sushant Luitel, Ms. Pabitra Magar