COVID 19 surveillance and contact tracingin the WHO South-East Asia Region

The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly challenged and disrupted communities, health systems, and health workers throughout the world. There were more than 61 million COVID 19 cases and 808 750 COVID 19 deaths reported from 2020 until the end of 2022 in the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region (SEAR). Surveillance and contact tracing are critical tools for infectious disease outbreak and epidemic response. WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia contracted the Nossal Institute for Global Health of the University of Melbourne to carry out the review of COVID 19 surveillance and contact tracing in the WHO South-East Asia Region, aiming to document lessons and to inform future efforts to further strengthen surveillance and contact tracing for epidemic- and pandemic-prone diseases in the Region.

This project aimed to describe varied country systems and experiences for COVID-19 surveillance and contact tracing across SEAR, how surveillance and contact tracing systems performed to respond to meet the evolving information needs of the pandemic response, and identify lessons learned to inform future strengthening of surveillance and contact tracing for epidemic and pandemic-prone diseases. This project also reviewed the performance and utility of digital technologies deployed to support surveillance and contact tracing for COVID-19, including an assessment of the benefits, challenges, and lessons learned to inform optimization of digital technology applications for surveillance and contact tracing in the future. Finally, this project reflected on the role of WHO in supporting surveillance and contact tracing capacities in SEAR Member States during the pandemic.