Global Health Security
The Global Health Security (GHS) team works on improving public health responses to COVID-19 and new emerging infectious diseases worldwide.
PROTECT
Prevention Response for Outbreaks, Threats, and Emergencies through Capacitation and Training (PROTECT) is a five-year project funded by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is designed to improve public health responses to COVID-19 and new emerging infectious diseases in South America (SAM) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. PROTECT strengthens several aspects of global health security, including event-based surveillance, respiratory surveillance and cross-border surveillance, as well as One Health and water-borne surveillance.
Event-based Surveillance
UCSF is a lead technical assistance partner for event-based surveillance (EBS) in SAM and MENA. UCSF has supported guideline development, training, monitoring and evaluation, data system development and data visualization in six countries.
Cross-border Public Health Surveillance
UCSF is supporting public health practitioners and policy makers to improve cross-border public health surveillance in MENA through research and training.
One Health
In 2023, PROTECT MENA began to provide technical assistance to the informatics component of the One Health (OH) approach to multi-sectoral data sharing in Egypt and Jordan. In Egypt, UCSF is working alongside the OH Technical Working Group to enhance the integration of data in the OH platform in the country. In Jordan, UCSF provides training and technical assistance to the development of the national data warehouse for integrating data across different sectors for a OH platform. These integrated platforms will facilitate a multi-sectoral approach to monitoring potential threats, including human health, zoonotic disease with spillover potential, and environmental health threats as well.
RSV Surveillance
UCSF's PROTECT South America team is currently partnering with CDC and TEPHINET to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Health in Ecuador and Paraguay to generate useful evidence for decision-making regarding the introduction of vaccination against RSV. Three activities will use surveillance data to update RSV seasonality in Ecuador and estimate disease burden in children under two years old hospitalized for acute respiratory illness. UCSF’s role is to provide technical assistance on the design and methodology of the activities, to develop and deliver trainings, and to provide technical assistance for data extraction as well as analysis and report writing support.
Collaborators
- CDC’s Division of Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses (CORVD)
- CDC’s Division of Global Migration Health
- CDC’s MENA Regional Office
- CDC’s South America Regional Office
- Ministry of Health officials
- Jordan Center for Disease Control (JCDC)
- World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO)
- Connecting Research to Development (Lebanon)
- The Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET)
- Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET)
- CRDF Global