Detecting diseases outbreaks quickly is a key element to build an efficient public health response to prevent catastrophic consequences and further spread of diseases. To enable early detection in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable contexts and countries experiencing health emergencies, WHO supports the rolling out of its Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS) in a box: a simple and cost-effective tool which enables rapid electronic reporting of epidemic-prone diseases.
EWARS in a box supports real-time mobile reporting on epidemic-prone diseases from the most difficult and remote field settings, with or without reliable internet or electricity. EWARS reporting sites can range from primary health care facilities in emergency-affected or besieged areas, camp clinics, mobile clinics, field laboratories to the community. Reporting can be done by anyone, including medical doctors, nurses, midwifes working in a camp for internally displaced persons or in local primary health care center, community health workers, community volunteers or community members themselves.
To date, WHO’s EWARS in a box supports over 30 countries across the six WHO regions. This includes for instance Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Haiti, Mauritania, Nigeria, the Pacific islands including Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands and South Sudan.
To further enhance the use of this electronic tool, EWARS in a box reached a new milestone with the publication of the EWARS in a box mobile user guide in July 2023.
This guidance complements the online training package on EWARS in a box available on the OpenWHO learning platform (episodes 14 and 15). The new publication is designed as a pocket guide, which can easily be carried by the reporting user with the EWARS mobile phone. Its self-explanatory nature enables uninterrupted reporting even when the user has not received any formal training on using the mobile application. This is of paramount importance to enable continuous reporting in emergencies where security concerns or difficult terrain prevent frequent engagement with communities, or in locations where there is a high turnaround of already trained individuals.
Moving forward, this guidance will be key to help WHO, Ministries of Health and health partners across the world to enhance their use of EWARS in a box and develop their own training materials in emergencies.
“Capacity building of people on using mobile technology for reporting on epidemic-prone diseases or alerting on unusual public health events during emergencies is crucial in outbreak detection. This comprehensive illustrative guidance fulfills this long felt need in emergency response” Dr Niluka Wijekoon Kannangarage Epidemiologist, EWARS in a box Project Lead.
For more information, click here and here or write to ewars@who.int.