Rapid Mortality Surveillance in Africa
-
by
AFENET
Funder: Vital Strategies
Project period: 04 April 2021 to 31 December 2021.
Background:
Ideally, all countries should have a digitized, unified death notification and registration system with high levels of coverage and data completeness that captures all deaths from all causes in all settings (e.g. hospitals; care facilities; homes; or prisons) and can therefore be used to generate all necessary mortality data promptly. However, in many low- and middle-income countries, the coverage and completeness of civil registration of deaths is often below 20%. In Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Togo, health facilities which are the main source of cause-of-death data are not only partially digitalized, but also poorly integrated into the civil registration system. This has led to significant lag times in reporting, poor data quality, and overall coverage. Furthermore, there is uncertainty on the strict application of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) rules of mortality coding.
Objectives:
- To have a functional health facility-based and community-based rapid mortality surveillance system (RMS)
Expected outcome(s):
- Functional health facility-based and community-based rapid mortality surveillance system (RMS)
