Maiduguri, 1 November, 2019 - Not so long ago, collecting and evaluating large amounts of data in the field on disease trends and patterns – an activity known as surveillance – was a cumbersome process. Surveillance officers noted information by hand on paper and sent hard copies of weekly reports to the local government area (LGA) secretariat via disease surveillance and notification officers (DSNOs).
“This made emergency response a bit slow,” says Mr Abubakar Wuyo, a surveillance officer at State Specialist Hospital Maiduguri in Borno State.