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By Abiola Alabi

In modern medical practice, disease surveillance is a process responsible for ensuring that outbreaks of disease, whether within a small population or on a global scale, are monitored and do not spread further. In monitoring such outbreaks, disease surveillance can also assist the prediction of epidemics, as well as the minimisation of damage caused by potential future outbreaks. The World Health Organisation The World Health Organisation is the world’s foremost agency in disease surveillance. From as early as 1969, WHO made it compulsory for all cases of smallpox, cholera, plague, typhus, relapsing fever and yellow fever across the world to be reported to them. In 2005, SARS and polio were two further diseases added to this list. With a number of active teams in many high-risk countries across the world (Nigeria among them), the World Health Organisation is able to use data gathered by disease surveillance to good effect. Nowadays, of course, the necessary data can be made available much quicker than ever before. With the internet, it is possible to receive significant information relating to outbreaks and epidemics within days, or even hours, of their occurrence. Technology and Disease Surveillance Technology, therefore, plays an extremely important role in the efficacy of disease surveillance, not only in terms of the speed and efficiency with which information is gathered, but in the quality of the information itself. Certain diseases, for example, are difficult to track and diagnose, and in order to ensure that they are identified correctly, appropriate technology is required. In certain African countries, this is often a problem. Nigeria is one such country where a lack of adequate technology has been a crucial factor in the spread of disease. This is often because the required diagnostic technology is expensive, and developing countries are therefore unable to compete with their developed counterparts. The Importance of Private Healthcare This is why private healthcare companies are important in Africa, and especially in Nigeria, where, due to the complexion of the economy, much of the country’s healthcare is taken care of by private companies, rather than the government. The Nigerian federal government, for example, allocates only 1.5% of its budget to healthcare. Companies such as Deux Projects International have a significant role to play in Nigeria’s healthcare system. Led by Dr. Tunji Olowolafe, Deux Projects International has, for many years, strived to improve Nigeria’s healthcare system by building new hospitals and research laboratories, as well as installing advanced medical equipment in existing facilities. In this way, Dr. Olowolafe and his company are ensuring that the Nigerian healthcare system is increasingly able to keep track of disease and, it is hoped, prevent further outbreaks. Of course, such a task is not easy, nor will the situation in Nigeria change overnight. With the right technology, however, as well as the support of international bodies such as the World Health Organisation, it is entirely possible that outbreaks of disease in Nigeria are increasingly kept under control and, perhaps one day, eradicated completely. Abiola Alabi is a Nigerian blogger, journalist and writer. He is particularly interested in infrastructure development and urban renewal in and around the burgeoning metropolis of Lagos.