Regional Action Plan for the strategy on epidemic intelligence for strengthening early warning of health emergencies 2024-2029

In May 2024, during the 174th Session of the Executive Committee of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) the proposed resolution on the “Strategy on Epidemic Intelligence (EI) for Strengthening Early Warning of Health Emergencies 2024-2029” (Document CE174/20) (1) was reviewed and adopted. In October 2024, the 61st Directing Council of PAHO approved the strategy recognizing its critical role in the timely detection of public health threats (2). Early identification of these threats is essential to rapidly implement containment measures, saving lives and minimizing socioeconomic impacts. Strengthening national and regional capacities to systematically detect signals of public health events, either from indicator or event-based surveillance was identified as a key component of epidemic intelligence, integrated with existing processes of detection, triage, verification, risk assessment, notification and response. The importance of supranational entities in public health surveillance has also been recognized, mainly for small Island Developing States (SIDS). 

Through this strategy, the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (PASB) and Member States in the Americas have committed to further strengthening their capacities for EI, an integrated process involving interlinked steps of detection, verification, risk assessment, notification and response. By enhancing EI, with a One Health approach, PASB and Member States aim to develop and/or consolidate efficient early warning systems, leveraging multiple data sources, to protect the health of the populations across the Americas and beyond from outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.