Pandemic Preparedness and Response in the Age of Technology
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abstract
Effective pandemic preparedness and response depend on the quality as well as the speed of obtaining relevant information, especially from remote and hard to reach areas of the world, where most known and unknown disease outbreaks occur and originate. Equally important is the local/national ability to collate, analyze, and interpret the information in a form valuable for taking appropriate preventive action and response. For web-based surveillance systems to be more effective, it is important that the capacity to collate, analyze, interpret, and disseminate the information in a form that results in appropriate preventive action and response in the countries where these diseases originate. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the ability to obtain information from different sources and dissemination of such information globally. Despite the availability of information on the development of the pandemic from a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), many countries were unprepared when the pandemic finally reached their borders. It is not enough for countries to efficiently analyze disease surveillance data, they must actively prepare to prevent the entry of a disease into their territory and, at the same time, prepare plans and identify and initiate containment measures that need to be taken to prevent the establishment of the disease in the country.
