The Task Force for Global Health (TFGH), in partnership with Africa CDC and WHO, implements The Global Fund’s Strengthening Outbreak Notification And Response (SONAR) program.
Through SONAR, The Task Force provides technical assistance to 14 low- and middle-income partner countries to strengthen their efforts to establish comprehensive, coordinated surveillance systems capable of detecting emerging outbreaks, tracking the course of pathogens through the community, linking laboratory and epidemiological data from the same cases, while making the data accessible in a form readily understandable by decision makers.
The ultimate goal is to speed response and save lives.
SONAR is building resilient health systems in partner countries that are effectively identifying and responding to emerging outbreaks through strengthened (early warning) surveillance, reporting and response systems.
The Global Fund tapped TFGH as its implementing partner for SONAR because of the diverse expertise across its programs which focus on disease elimination, ensuring access to vaccines, and strengthening health systems.
SONAR works across programs at TFGH bringing varied expertise to the work of improving early warning surveillance. TFGH programs involved in SONAR include the Partnership for International Vaccine Initiatives (PIVI) and the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII).
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
- Reduce time and improve quality and capacity of outbreak detection and reporting.
- Improve epidemic intelligence and use of surveillance data for timely decision making.
- Improve cross-sectoral and cross-country coordination and collaboration for better, faster outbreak detection and response.
OUTCOMES AND ACTIVITIES
As SONAR nears the end of its programming, we have seen that partner countries have improved capacity to detect signals and outbreaks earlier and decreased the time from outbreak detection to notification and response. Support to achieve these goals will included:
- Supporting rapid implementation and effective utilization of funds
- Catalytic assistance at national level: to reduce fragmentation, improve design and innovate
- Embedding staff in Africa CDC, WHO AFRO to improve guidance uptake
- Enhancing use of data for action, with continuous quality improvement
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Capacity building: Extending, enhancing MoH by embedding staff at national; sub-national level
RESULTS
SONAR has generated measurable, system improvements across its 14 partner countries:
- 9 countries developed or updated national early warning surveillance guidelines and standard operating procedures.
- 170,000+ personnel trained in event-based surveillance (EBS) reporting capacities, including more than 6,000 national and regional trainers.
- All partner countries expanded active EBS reporting sites across community, subnational, and national levels.
- 8 countries institutionalized the 7-1-7 framework (7 days to detection | 1 day to notification | 7 days to response) for routine continuous quality improvement and bottleneck analyses.
- All partner countries improved at least one timeliness indicator for outbreak detection and reporting.
- Supported establishment of Africa CDC’s Central Data Repository, strengthening continental visibility of malaria, cholera, mpox, and other priority diseases.