Incorporating Tele-Health Into Disease Surveillance

Abstract

The increasing challenges in the field of public health is on the increase more than ever before and some of these challenges are not only natural but man-made threats; this calls for a concerted effort to have a perfect global surveillance system in place to ensure timeliness, accuracy, reliability, and completeness of disease tracking and reporting. It suffices to mention that the transformations recorded in the public health discipline vis-à-vis information telecommunication technology has tremendously improved disease surveillance with palpable results in the developed countries. Thus, the emergence of health informatics has significantly speed up detection of disease outbreaks, tracking of communicable and non-communicable diseases alike through the use of advanced software applications, increase investment in bioterrorism, syndromic surveillance and the use of automated surveillance systems to monitor both emerging and re-emerging diseases. However, considering the increasing global threat posed by bioterrorism, emerging and re-emerging diseases, there is need for the developing countries to also embrace the Tele-health system and to put in place a functional modern surveillance system.