Global Futures Initiative

Dr. Chan’s lecture addressed the importance of integrating systems for data collection. The Director-General stated that “Having good data on normal disease patterns is important, especially at the community level. That helps you to distinguish and recognize an unusual disease event, like Ebola.”

Collecting data during an event like the Ebola outbreak is important, as it helps to improve responses to future outbreaks. But learning from past experience is only one key: we must also implement ongoing data collection and monitoring systems. Recognition will be the first step to containing and responding to a new outbreak. The sooner a disease outbreak is recognized, the more targeted the response can be, which will save resources and lives.

Communication with healthcare centers and reporting from medical professionals is generally the standard for tracking disease outbreaks and general health patterns. While there is certainly a need for professional reports, hospitals and health survey teams cannot cover every community. In areas with limited access to healthcare, the majority of the people may not present to a hospital or clinic for treatment and will consequently never be factored into disease surveys. Self-reporting through web-enabled devices (smartphones especially) is an increasingly viable option and one that WHO and other health organizations should pursue to improve outbreak monitoring and tracking.