Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Aug 02, 2022)
Date Submitted: Aug 24, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Enhanced surveillance for covid-19 response in Lagos State, Nigeria: lessons learnt, 2020
ABSTRACT
Background:
The SARS-CoV-2, the novel virus which causes the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has changed the world. No aspect of humanity is untouched from health, aviation, service industry, politics, economy, education, and entertainment to social and personal lives, since the outbreak of influenza-like illness in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The Lagos State COVID-19 response team deployed enhanced surveillance through Active Case Search (ACS) for Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) at health facilities and communities in the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Lagos State. Lagos State was the first state in Nigeria to deploy this specific surveillance strategy for Nigeria’s COVID-19 response.
Objective:
We documented the methods, findings, and review of the active case search for acute respiratory infections, part of COVID-19 response in 20 LGAs of Lagos State, between 1st April and 15th May 2020.
Methods:
We utilized descriptive and quantitative approaches to describe and assess the impact of the Active Case Search (ACS) for Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) in health facilities and communities in 20 LGAs of Lagos State between 1st April and 15th May 2020.
Results:
We found a significant difference in mean scores of suspected COVID-19 cases (M=60, SD=109, before ACS for ARI compared to M=568, SD=732, after ACS for ARI, P=0.0039), confirmed cases (M=10, SD=19, before ACS for ARI compared to M=144, SD=187, after ACS for ARI, P=0.0028) and contacts (M=56, SD=116, before ACS for ARI compared to M=152, SD=177, after ACS for ARI, P=0.044) before and after ACS for ARI in 20 LGAs of Lagos State, between 1st April and 15th May 2020.
Conclusions:
The deployment of the Lagos State government’s polio-eradication structure for the COVID-19 response is both innovative and effective. The response to COVID-19 requires robust surveillance, credible and timely communication, collaboration, coordination among government, inter-governmental organizations (e.g., WHO), non-governmental organizations, and citizens to succeed and limit the medical, economic, social, and personal losses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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