Infectious Diseases

The national severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) surveillance system in Yemen was established in 2010 to monitor SARI occurrence in humans and provide a foundation for detecting SARI outbreaks.

 

This study aimed to examine the level of usefulness and the performance of the SARI surveillance system in Yemen.

 

Methods: The updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines were used for the purposes of our evaluation. Related documents and reports were reviewed. Data were collected from 4 central-level managers and stakeholders and from 10 focal points at 4 sentinel sites by using a semistructured questionnaire.

 

For each attribute, percent scores were calculated and ranked as follows: very poor (≤20%), poor (20%-40%), average (40%-60%), good (60%-80%), and excellent (>80%).

 

The surveillance systems at sentinel sites are tools for the early detection of disease, the monitoring of trends in the burden of diseases, and the generation of recommendations for the prevention and control of diseases. The evaluation of surveillance systems helps decision makers to set priorities for future planning, resource allocation, and future interventions for preventing the spread of diseases.

Results: As rated by the evaluators, the SARI surveillance system achieved its objectives.

 

The system’s flexibility (percent score: 86%) and acceptability (percent score: 82%) were rated as “excellent,” and simplicity (percent score: 74%) and stability (percent score: 75%) were rated as “good.”

 

The percent score for timeliness was 23% in 2018, which indicated poor timeliness. The overall data quality percent score of the SARI system was 98.5%.

 

Despite its many strengths, the SARI system has some weaknesses. For example, it depends on irregular external financial support.

 

The SARI surveillance system was useful in estimating morbidity and mortality, monitoring the trends of the disease, and promoting research for informing prevention and control measures.

 

The overall performance of the SARI surveillance system was good.

 

We recommend expanding the system by promoting private health facilities’ (eg, private hospitals and private health centers) engagement in SARI surveillance, establishing an electronic database at central and peripheral sites, and providing the National Central Public Health Laboratory with the reagents needed for disease confirmation.