As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen Saint Lucia’s health surveillance capacity for early detection and response to public health threats, the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs recently launched the National Event-Based Surveillance System.

The Event-Based Surveillance System is designed to incorporate an unstructured way of identifying and assessing reports of potential health threats from the level of the community and social media alerts. This system is expected to play a significant part in protecting the health security of the nation.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar-George hailed the launch of the system as a significant moment in the journey towards strengthening health security and protecting the well-being of the community.

“In a world of increased travel and trade; health threats can emerge at any time, which we have been seeing over the last few years. No disease is specific to one region. Event-Based Surveillance allows us to prepare and receive in a timely manner, the concerns of the public through informal channels which may be community reports, media monitoring, social platforms, often before our traditional systems take place. This is what we have been doing but on a small scale. Now, we will have an organized mechanism or platform to allow us to get that information in a timely manner.”

The launch of the Event-Based Surveillance System won a positive reaction from the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Jenny Daniel who reminded stakeholders of their responsibility to ensure the system is a success.

Ms. Daniel also highlighted the role of every citizen in health surveillance and the part they play to mitigate public health threats on island.

“Today we recognize that surveillance does not begin in the clinic or in the laboratory. It begins in the community, in the school yard, in the market stall, in the poultry coup, in our homes where events unfold and patterns emerge long before they reach the attention of our health care providers. This is why the event-based surveillance is so powerful. It allows us to capture health threats at the earliest signs, not only through traditional channels but through community driven alerts. It enables us to act faster, to investigate sooner and to intervene more effectively, thereby safeguarding not only human health but also animal health and our shared environment.”

The preparation and implementation of the Event-Based Surveillance System was made possible through the technical support of the Pan American Health Organisation PAHO.

PAHO Advisor for Health Surveillance, Disease Prevention and Control Dr. Prabjot Singh commended Saint Lucia for strides made in utilizing digital tools to monitor informal sources of potential health threats.

“That is building on the leadership that Saint Lucia has shown in Information Systems. In Saint Lucia, you already have almost a paperless system in implementing through HMIS. Now you are going towards the implementation with the HIS tool which is going to “complaints” which is a normal thing because we have not yet tested, to use the platform for Event-Based Surveillance. On this Saint Lucia is the only and first Caribbean country to go and have a platform which is digital for Event-Based Surveillance. For that I will like to commend you.”

Leading up to the launch of the Event-Based Surveillance System, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) hosted a workshop with key stakeholders to provide them with a better understanding of the principles and mechanisms of the system.

The stakeholders who benefitted from this workshop included representatives from essential sectors such as health, education, agriculture, environment, disaster management, border control, civil society and the media.