Jose Guerra

Role: Invited Speaker
Affiliation: World Health Organisation

Biography:
Dr José Guerra, is a medical public health specialist working at the World Health Organization Lyon Office since 2013. He supports countries in implementing the surveillance core capacities requested by the International Health Regulations (2005). Before working at the WHO, he worked in field epidemiology in France, Benin, Cambodia for several NGOs and Research Institutes.

Abstract:
Argus – an electronic solution for real-time national public health surveillance in resource-limited countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed Argus, a free and open source electronic solution to support public health surveillance for early detection and response in respect to the WHO Regional Office for Africa public health surveillance strategy. It uses Short Message Service (SMS) technology for the transmission of information between the local healthcare facilities and all levels of the public health surveillance system via a mobile application. A web platform complements the application for data management and analysis by using the internet. Argus was pilot-tested in two regions of the Togolese Republic for weekly reporting and immediate notification of alerts. The data generated by the system during its first year of operation was analysed. Argus has proved to be an affordable and useful solution to strengthen weekly public health surveillance reporting by healthcare facilities, and review of reports by the upper levels of the system.