National Epidemic Sentinel Surveillance System (NESSS)
The National Epidemic Sentinel Surveillance System - NEC (NESSS) of the Department of Health is a network of hospital sentinel sites nationwide. These sentinel sites are linked to the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Units (RESUs). The sentinel sites are hospitals in the regions and are selected according to the following criteria:
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The hospital should have at least 250 bed capacity (a hospital with lesser bed capacity can be a sentinel site if it is the only hospital in the province)
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The hospital should have a laboratory capability to do malarial smears; blood and stool cultures; hepatitis serology
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The hospital authorities should be willing to participate
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Available personnel willing and interested to do surveillance; and
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Adequate means of communication between sentinel site and RESU should exist.
The system utilizes hospital admissions to monitor occurrence of diseases in order to provide rapid, timely, and accurate information, and early warning on disease outbreaks. The data therefore can only provide disease trends and does not reflect the total burden of a disease. It attempts to estimate the endemicity or the constant presence of a disease in a given area. Also, the number of admissions vary according to the size of population seeking medical care and population movement.
The NESSS monitors 14 infectious diseases including the EPI diseases (AFP/Polio, Measles, and Neonatal Tetanus). Special surveillance systems like HIV surveillance and fireworks-related injury surveillance are also run by NEC/RESU staff. An emergency room-based injury surveillance system was initiated in January 1995.
Data from these surveillance systems have been extensively utilized by the DOH top management and program managers for policy formulation and program evaluation. From its primal role as a mini-information system for the department, it has grown to provide information to other government and non-government organizations as well. The network data was specially useful during the implementation of the Local Government Code (devolution of health services) when vertical reporting (from peripheral health units to central office) was interrupted. Despite the break in data flow from the periphery, NEC was able to provide estimates of disease load which served as the basis for program planning and decision making.
More information about NESSS
