ABSTRACT
Public health surveillance is vital to understanding the impact of diseases, targeting resources, detecting and mitigating outbreaks of disease and evaluating prevention programs. In public health, competition for scarce resources can be high in both developed and developing settings, and thus surveillance is of vital importance to determine priorities for intervention. Syndromes in syndromic surveillance are defined as a group of symptoms or signs that can serve as a proxy of disease in a population. Typical syndromic surveillance systems are usually based on a software platform and are flexible in accepting and transforming various data sources. The use of syndromic surveillance systems worldwide has been increasing commensurate with the availability of health and health-related data sources. Surveillance activities should be designed according to what was described in the directive. One issue to address when external organizations support the implementation process of a disease surveillance system is the system staff perception of the ownership of the system.
