Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) is a framework to improve the response to the leading causes of infectious disease. The IHR Strengthening project has been working with our partners in Pakistan to improve IDSR for the past six years.

Key achievements of the partnership have included training 88 IDSR master trainers; all healthcare providers in 47 districts trained in IDSR, who represent more than 2000 healthcare facilities; the creation of 3 new provincial public health laboratories and a new multisector outbreak response plan.

In August, the Senior Leadership Team travelled to Pakistan. Together with federal and provincial representatives from the National Institute for Health (NIH), they co-facilitated a national workshop celebrating the key achievements in IDSR. The workshop was incredibly successful and explored the challenges and opportunities for further expansion of IDSR throughout Pakistan.

”What Pakistan has achieved in 6 years would have taken other countries 30 years. This is a time to celebrate success, explore areas of good practice, opportunities for improvement, and to move forward together to further strengthen ISDR in Pakistan”

- Dr Muhammad Sartaj, Country Lead for Pakistan

By Ellie Fairfoot and Dr Samuel Collins 

Further links: Post from NIH's facebook page The 02-days... - National Institutes of Health Pakistan | Facebook