Table 1.
Recommendations for strengthening COVID-19 tests and its surveillance at country level.
| Proposed recommendations | Source code |
|---|---|
| 1). National procurement protocol should be in place which can be used by policy-makers for the acquisition of laboratory needs | (GHS 2.1.1b) |
| 2). Participation of countries in regional or international laboratory network | (GHS 2.1.2a; JEE D.1.3) |
| 3). Nationwide specimen transport system | (GHS 2.1.2b; JEE D.1.2) |
| 4). National laboratory that serves as an accredited reference facility (e.g. ISO 15189:2003, US Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) | (GHS 2.1.3a; JEE D.1.4) |
| 5). Establishment and evaluation of ongoing event-based surveillance and analysis for COVID-19 at least weekly | (GHS 2.2.1a; IHR 3.1.1.3; JEE D.2.1) |
| 6). Presence of an electronic reporting surveillance system that continuously collect real-time laboratory data | (GHS 2.2.2b) |
| 7). Regular feedback and reporting of surveillance results are disseminated to all levels and relevant stakeholders | (IHR 3.1.1.7; JEE D.2.3) |
| 8). Early warning function of the indicator based surveillance and its evaluation | (IHR 3.1.1.8a) |
| 7). Governmental commitment to share surveillance data during a public health emergency with other nations | (GHS 2.2.2c) |
| 8). The national public health system has access to electronic health records of individuals; the surveillance system being equipped with a fully secure interoperable electronic tool that is connected to other relevant electronic tools | (GHS 2.2.5b) (JEE D.2.2) |
| 9). Preparing country for trained field epidemiologists | (GHS 2.3.2a) |
| 10). Synthesis of a list of priority diseases (COVID-19) for surveillance | (IHR 3.1.1.1; JEE D1.1) |
| 11). Building specific units designated for surveillance of public health risk | (IHR 3.1.1.2) |
References refer to: 1). GHS, Global Health Security Index. Available at: https://www.ghsindex.org/about/. Accessed on 04 May, 2020; 2). IHR, International Health Regulation, WE-SPAR State Party annual report. WHO. Available at: https://extranet.who.int/e-spar/. Accessed on 04 May, 2020; 3). JEE, Joint External Evaluation tool (JEE tool) WHO - second edition. IHR (2005) Monitoring and Evaluation framework. Available at: https://www.who.int/ihr/publications/WHO_HSE_GCR_2018_2/en/. Accessed on 04 May, 2020