Outbreak Timeliness Measures in Southeastern Europe assesses the timeliness of outbreak detection, verification, and response in seven countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia. Through the process, infectious disease surveillance records from participating Ministries of Health will be digitized and integrated into outbreak timeliness datasets and other surveillance systems. Measurements will be stratified by disease, country, and border regions. This analysis will inform approaches to improving disease surveillance in the region and help to better target limited resources where they will be most impactful.
Outbreak Timeliness Measures in Southeastern Europe aims to improve One Health surveillance capabilities and measure timeliness of outbreak detection (and associated metrics) in the studied countries. Through this assessment, the countries can learn whether changes to reporting policies, implementation of the IHR core competencies, use of novel disease reporting systems, or increased investments in disease surveillance have improved their speed of detection and response capabilities. These countries’ Ministries of Health can also use this baseline to assess progress to date and identify programmatic or geographic gaps that can inform resource allocation and strategic planning. Governments, NGOs, and philanthropies can use the measurements emerging from this project to better understand which investments have the biggest impact in the area of rapid detection and response and can share these learnings to ensure efficient use of limited funds.
