Development and Implementation of a Public Health Event Management System, Nigeria, 2018-2024.

Event management systems (EMS) are key tools for epidemic intelligence, integrating surveillance signals and incident response, although international standards to inform development are lacking. We describe the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) SITAware, a software capable of operating with low internet bandwidth to generate notifications, reports, and spatiotemporal dashboards and provide event-level data for real-time accountability and postevent learning. SITAware was enabled by local institutional ownership, co-created at low cost, and integrated into existing workflows.

None of us are prepared unless all of us are prepared: research for the next health shock must be inclusive and equitable.

Rich countries like the UK will need to match rhetoric with investment and action at home and internationally to ensure global health security and resilience to health shocks, write

The role of international support programmes in global health security capacity building: A scoping review.

Large scale public health emergencies such as COVID-19 demonstrate the importance of Global Health Security (GHS) and highlight the necessity of resilient public health systems capable of preparing for, detecting, managing, and recovering from such emergencies. Many international programmes support low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to strengthen public health capabilities for compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR). This narrative review seeks to identify key characteristics and factors necessary for effective and sustainable IHR core capacity development, establishing roles for international support and some principles of good practice.

Global and regional governance of One Health and implications for global health security.

The apparent failure of global health security to prevent or prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for closer cooperation between human, animal (domestic and wildlife), and environmental health sectors. However, the many institutions, processes, regulatory frameworks, and legal instruments with direct and indirect roles in the global governance of One Health have led to a fragmented, global, multilateral health security architecture. We explore four challenges: first, the sectoral, professional, and institutional silos and tensions existing between human, animal, and environmental health; second, the challenge that the international legal system, state sovereignty, and existing legal instruments pose for the governance of One Health; third, the power dynamics and asymmetry in power between countries represented in multilateral institutions and their impact on priority setting; and finally, the current financing mechanisms that predominantly focus on response to crises, and the chronic underinvestment for epidemic and emergency prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities.

Reviewing Health Security Capacities in Nigeria Using the Updated WHO Joint External Evaluation and WHO Benchmarks Tool: Experience from a Country-Led Self-Assessment Exercise.

Across the world, the level of pandemic preparedness varies and no country is fully prepared to respond to all public health events. The International Health Regulations 2005 require state parties to develop core capacities to prevent, detect, and respond to public health events of international concern. In addition to annual self-assessment, these capacities are peer reviewed once every 5 years through the voluntary Joint External Evaluation (JEE).

Evaluating implementation of International Health Regulations core capacities: using the Electronic States Parties Self-Assessment Annual Reporting Tool (e-SPAR) to monitor progress with Joint External Evaluation indicators.

Background: The International Health Regulations (IHR) are a legally binding instrument designed to improve Global Health Security by limiting the cross boarder spread of health risks. All 196 signatories to the IHR (2005) are required to report progress towards IHR core capacity implementation through an annual multi-sectoral self-assessment process known as the State Parties Self-Assessment Annual Reporting (SPAR). This mandatory process sits alongside the voluntary, external, peer-reviewed Joint External Evaluations (JEE) as two core components of the IHR monitoring and evaluation framework.

Evaluation of National Event-Based Surveillance, Nigeria, 2016-2018.

Nigeria Centres for Disease Control and Prevention established an event-based surveillance (EBS) system in 2016 to supplement traditional surveillance structures. The EBS system is comprised of an internet-based data mining tool and a call center. To evaluate the EBS system for usefulness, simplicity, acceptability, timeliness, and data quality, we performed a descriptive analysis of signals received during September 2017-June 2018.

Evaluating an institutional health partnership using the ESTHER EFFECt tool: A case study of an evaluation of the institutional health partnership between Nigeria CDC and Public Health England.

Objectives: Bilateral Institutional Health Partnerships (IHPs) are a means of strengthening health systems and are becoming increasing prevalent in global health. Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Public Health England (PHE) have engaged in one such IHP as part of Public Health England's International Health Regulations Strengthening project. Presently, there have been limited evaluations of IHPs resulting in limited evidence of their effectiveness in strengthening health systems despite the concept being used across the world.

Improving National Intelligence for Public Health Preparedness: a methodological approach to finding local multi-sector indicators for health security.

The COVID-19 epidemic is the latest evidence of critical gaps in our collective ability to monitor country-level preparedness for health emergencies. The global frameworks that exist to strengthen core public health capacities lack coverage of several preparedness domains and do not provide mechanisms to interface with local intelligence. We designed and piloted a process, in collaboration with three National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Pakistan, to identify potential preparedness indicators that exist in a myriad of frameworks and tools in varying local institutions.

Using critical information to strengthen pandemic preparedness: the role of national public health agencies.

COVID-19 has demonstrated that most countries' public health systems and capacities are insufficiently prepared to prevent a localised infectious disease outbreak from spreading. Strengthening national preparedness requires National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs), or their equivalent, to overcome practical challenges affecting timely access to, and use of, data that is critical to preparedness. Our situational analysis in collaboration with NPHIs in three countries-Ethiopia, Nigeria and Pakistan-characterises these challenges.

The Epidemiology of Q Fever in England and Wales 2000-2015.

Between 2000 and 2015, 904 cases of acute Q fever were reported in England and Wales. The case dataset had a male to female ratio of 2.5:1, and a median age of 45 years.

Identifying areas and risk groups with localised Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission in northern England from 2010 to 2012: spatiotemporal analysis incorporating highly discriminatory genotyping data.

Background: Information on geographical variation in localised transmission of TB can inform targeting of disease control activities. The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of TB attributable to localised transmission for the period 2010-2012 in northern England and to identify case characteristics associated with spatiotemporal-genotypical clusters.

Methods: We combined genotyping data with spatiotemporal scan statistics to define an indicator of localised TB transmission and identified factors associated with localised TB transmission thus defined in a multivariable logistics regression model.