Who Lyon Office: Supporting countries in achieving the international health regulations (2005) core capacities for public health surveillance

Introduction The International Health Regulations (IHR) are a legally binding agreement revised in 2005 and endorsed by 196 countries. Through the IHR, countries obliged themselves to develop, strengthen and maintain a set of minimum core capacities for surveillance and response at all levels of the country (i.e. local, intermediate, national level). These capacities include: the detection of any unexpected public health event at all times and in all areas of the country; the immediate reporting of these events to the upper level; the immediate implementation of preliminary control measures; the notification to the World Health Organization (WHO) of any potential public health emergency of international concern. These requirements provide a paradigm change in national public health surveillance, with an emphasis put in the early detection and response to any type of public health event. Global guidance and tools are useful to support countries in achieving the IHR core capacities for surveillance and response. Methods Established in 2001, the WHO Lyon Office is part of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme and aims to support countries in achieving the IHR core capacities. The Laboratory and Surveillance Strengthening team is in charge of developing global guidance and tools and providing support to priority countries for public health surveillance strengthening. Results Over the years, the WHO Lyon office has developed guides, training materials, and provided financial and technical assistance to public health surveillance systems in resource-limited countries. To strengthen the early detection and response function of the public health surveillance system, WHO has published two guides: “Implementation of Early warning and response with a focus on event-based surveillance” and “Coordinated public health surveillance between points of entry and national health surveillance systems”. An implementation toolbox is available for the later guide to support countries in assessing their existing capacities, developing a tailored action plan, and implementing the action plan for capacity strengthening. An electronic tool (Argus) has been developed to facilitate the reporting and management of public health surveillance data in respect of the integrated Disease Surveillance and Response technical guidelines, the WHO Regional Office for Africa surveillance strategy. A systematic literature review has been performed to understand how to better involve the community in event detection and prepare a roadmap to strengthen so-called community-based surveillance. Additional topics of interest to achieve IHR core capacities for public health surveillance have been identified and will lead to additional activities. Conclusions In many countries, achievement of the IHR core capacities for surveillance and response needs appropriate global guidance and tools, but also international cooperation among all stakeholders to ensure priority needs are supported first and in a coherent manner. The presentation of the WHO Lyon Office activities for public health surveillance strengthening may be the occasion to highlight priority needs and create new partnerships.