With the SARS outbreak in 2002 and more recently with Ebola in West Africa, the threat of emerging and re-emerging infections is a real and present danger facing the global community. Uganda is located in a hot spot for these infections. We propose to leverage the research and capacity building experience of the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) and its collaborative and productive relationship with the government of Uganda (GOU) to develop a generate evidence-based approaches to diseases surveillance and potentially enhance the country capacity to prevent, detect and effectively respond to emerging infectious disease threats. The IDI is a research, clinical and training center of excellence based that the pre-eminent institution of learning in Uganda-Makerere University. Established in 2002, the IDI has established a strong track record in performing locally relevant research that leads to improved models of care and changes in policy and practice in the area of HIV and related infections. In addition, the outreach programs largely funded by the CDC and 12 PEPFAR as the key implementing partner took a strong health systems institutional strengthening approach to provide prevention care and treatment to more than 100,000 patients. The proposal seeks to address specific high-priority implementation gaps in diseases surveillance in Uganda by evaluating current approaches; designing candidate model and to rigorously test their impact in enhancing surveillance. It is innovative because it leverages on-going surveillance approaches implemented under the leadership of the emergency operation centre (EOC) and the ministry of Health (MOH); to develop and rigorously evaluate innovative surveillance models. Additionally, the proposed research which is co-sponsored by the Uganda MOH will potentially lead to changes in policy and practice, as well as enhance the Ugandan MOH?s capacity to undertake future operational research/implementation science studies.
Uganda is a ?hot spot? for emerging infectious diseases (EID) outbreaks - many occurring in border locations with great potential to spill over in the Great Lakes region of Africa. There are key national capacities that require strengthening for the effective neutralization of global health threats. The current proposal seeks to leverage on-going surveillance approaches to generate evidence regarding which components and models are effective in enhancing surveillance of public health threat if international concern.
