Sierra Leone’s e-Case-Based Disease Surveillance and Response evaluation report

The Directorate and Health Security and Emergencies, Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS), has successfully switched from paper-based case-based data to an electronic reporting system aimed at providing timely notifications of priority diseases occurrences, as well as enriching data availability for emergency response. This system was built on the DHIS2 platform and the focus is on timely data entry and reporting of case investigation data of priority diseases from the districts to the national level. With technical and financial support from US CDC, AFENET, and WHO, the eCBDS was rolled out nationally by mid-2021 covering both COVID-19 reporting and other epidemic-prone priority diseases. Since then, 91.5% of public health facilities across the country are using the eCBDS to timely report individual data on identified cases of epidemic-prone diseases.

With technical support and lead by the US CDC, an evaluation of eCBDS was conducted in eight purposively selected districts and 40 randomly selected health facilities from July to August 2022. The draft evaluation report of the system was disseiminated at both district and national level in September 2022. Following the compilation of the report, the final results and eCBDS implementation successes and limitations were disseminated to stakeholders, in May 2023, by MoHS spearheaded by the Director DHSE, and participation of partners including US CDC, WHO, Jhpiego, Metabiota, ICAP, UNICEF among others.

The dissemination triggered discussions on how the system will be maintained and sustained considering findings from the evaluation including recommendations and challenges. Among the discussions were how the obsolete tablets for reporting will be managed as it interrupts reporting at health facility level, plus internet bundles and connectivity challenges across facilities. Partners pledged to support the electronic system sustainability, a UNICEF representative pledging to integrate reproductive health systems into eCBDS for interoperability purposes.