WHO/A Perrocheau
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Credits
The outbreak toolkit project
The Outbreak Toolkit project was launched in 2017 at the WHO Regional Office for Africa. During the consultation meeting in Dakar, Senegal in January 2018, countries endorsed the project and defined priorities for the development of tools. The six WHO regional offices are main stakeholders of the project with the coordination at WHO HQ. This website is the repository of the tools and products developed by the project.
Goals of the outbreak toolkit project:
Reducing the impact of outbreaks of any disease.
Objectives
- Assist epidemiologists and investigators in the field to conduct detailed outbreak investigations;
- minimise time spent prior to and during field deployment researching and locating key documents;
- arm staff with critical information needed to guide investigation design, data collection and response activities;
- improve awareness of existing resources available across WHO offices.
- Support early evaluation of the cause, severity and risk of extension of the outbreak;
- Provide standardised tools for data collection;
- Facilitate comparability and sharing of data during outbreak investigations.
- Develop tools for the investigation of outbreak of unknown disease.
To elaborate the disease specific toolbox (pre-deployment package), we reviewed existing disease related documents, search guidelines over the regional offices and headquarter websites; disease experts were systematically involved and have validated the toolboxes. Documents are constantly updated when revised version become available.
The standardized data collection tools is the product of a collaborative approach engaging an international working group of experts from WHO and partner organisations with a good expertise in outbreak investigation. A set of 25 core variables (Epi Core Variables) for outbreak investigations was identified using a DELPHI approach to compile expert opinion. The Epi Core Variables were included in a case investigation form (T0 Initial case reporting form) intended to support users in the very first steps of an outbreak investigation, capturing initial data on cases, and facilitating analysis with pre-established line-list structure. It aims at conducting descriptive epidemiology, hypothesis generation, and assessing the severity and expansion of an outbreak. Sharing T0 with all existing field data capture tools is among our priorities.
All outputs and the website of the project have written bearing in mind the context of complex emergencies and remote areas with sometimes very limited resources.