Seal, Andrew;
Jelle, Mohamed;
Nemeth, Balint;
Hassan, Mohamed Yusuf;
Farah, Dek Abdi;
Musili, Faith Mueni;
Asol, George Samuel;
... Fottrell, Edward; + view all
(2021)
Data innovation in response to COVID-19 in Somalia: application of a syndromic case definition and rapid mortality assessment method.
Global Health Action
, 14
(sup1)
, Article 1983106. 10.1080/16549716.2021.1983106.
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Abstract
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of reliable public health data has been highlighted, as well as the multiple challenges in collecting it, especially in low income and conflict-affected countries. Somalia reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 16 March 2020 and has experienced fluctuating infection levels since then. Objectives: To monitor the impact of COVID-19 on beneficiaries of a long-term cash transfer programme in Somalia and assess the utility of a syndromic score case definition and rapid mortality surveillance tool. Methods: Five rounds of telephone interviews were conducted from June 2020 – April 2021 with 1,046–1,565 households participating in a cash transfer programme. The incidence of COVID-19 symptoms and all-cause mortality were recorded. Carers of the deceased were interviewed a second time using a rapid verbal autopsy questionnaire to determine symptoms preceding death. Data were recorded on mobile devices and analysed using COVID Rapid Mortality Surveillance (CRMS) software and R. Results: The syndromic score case definition identified suspected symptomatic cases that were initially confined to urban areas but then spread widely throughout Somalia. During the first wave, the peak syndromic case rate (311 cases/million people/day) was 159 times higher than the average laboratory confirmed case rate reported by WHO for the same period. Suspected COVID-19 deaths peaked at 14.3 deaths/million people/day, several weeks after the syndromic case rate. Crude and under-five death rates did not cross the respective emergency humanitarian thresholds (1 and 2 deaths/10,000 people/day). Conclusion: Use of telephone interviews to collect data on the evolution of COVID-19 outbreaks is a useful additional approach that can complement laboratory testing and mortality data from the health system. Further work to validate the syndromic score case definition and CRMS is justified.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Data innovation in response to COVID-19 in Somalia: application of a syndromic case definition and rapid mortality assessment method |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/16549716.2021.1983106 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2021.1983106 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Somalia, Covid-19, surveillance system, mortality, syndromic case definition |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10146462 |
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