Surveillance, Response, and Management: Testing and Contact Tracing Covid -19 Improvement Strategies
WHAT IS SURVEILLANCE, RESPONSE, AND MANAGEMENT ?
As a person’s first entry point into the health system, Primary Health Care (PHC) not only provides a platform for ensuring access to essential and routine healthcare but is also a critical foundation for the direct surveillance, response and management of outbreaks.
PHC, with its strong community ties and coordinating function, allows for the multi-sectoral action needed to reduce vulnerability and build resilience of communities. Leveraging PHC for outbreak response is particularly important in low- and middle-income countries where there is often limited access to healthcare overall. Drawing from PHCPI’s Improvement Strategies we identified three core strategies for how PHC systems can be leveraged for COVID-19 surveillance, response and management as shown in the graphic to the right. This document focuses specifically on the role of PHC in COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.
