Objectives: The objective is to strengthen the capacities for reporting notifiable diseases in three of the five partner counties, namely: Maryland, River Gee and Grand Kru. The objective is to be achieved primarily by coordinated multilevel capacity building and preparedness coordination measures to foster the implementation of the integrated and standardized service package for Community Event Based Surveillance (CEBS) and the roll-out of the forthcoming 3^rd edition of the Liberian guidelines for IDSR in the three targeted counties.

Content: IDSR is a strategy of the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa for improving disease surveillance and response in the African region. It is a strategy for coordinating and integrating surveillance activities by focusing on the surveillance, laboratory, and response functions of the national disease surveillance system. Liberia adopted and has been implementing the IDSR strategy since 2004. The Liberian Ministry of Health has finalized the 3^rd edition of the Liberian guidelines for IDSR in 2021 and started with its distribution and training in December 2021 with support from the German International Cooperation (GIZ), namely the GIZ Programme “Health Systems Strengthening and Epidemic Prevention (HSSEP) in Liberia”. Political partner in Liberia are the MoH and key stakeholders including the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) and the County and District Health Teams.

Health Focus with the Implementing Partners Samaritan’s Purse and Partners in Health implements two sets of cascade training (CEBS and IDSR) and follow-up activities from national down to community level.

Work package 1: Mechanisms for coordination of national level policy advice and local implementation support in regard to IDSR

• Policy support at national level
• Training materials, toolboxes, policies and emergency plans and SOPs

Work package 2: Support to the health authorities in the south-eastern counties at county and district level who are responsible for the delivery / implementation of IDSR and CEBS

• ToT courses on CEBS
• CEBS staff training as part of the standard package
• Supervision and Support of CSOs (County Surveillance Officers ) and DSOs (District Surveillance Officers)
• Support of Health Facility Development Council (HFDC)

Work Package 3: Training, mentoring and support to staff of local health facilities and communities in the 3^rd edition of the national IDSR guidelines

• ToT courses
• IDSR staff trainings on the national 3^rd edition
• Anchoring of the 3^rd edition of IDSR guidelines

Work Package 4: Implementation of a regional Simulation Exercise to test the disease surveillance and response system in the south-eastern counties and its recommendations

• Conduct regional Simulation Exercise (Tabletop exercise) for improving the IDSR system
• Integrate SimEx recommendations

Type of services provided:

• Project administration, monitoring and supervision in line with the GIZ instruments;
• Coordination with GIZ HSSEP and project partners;
• Technical backstopping of the project ensuring the services of the experts according to the work plan agreed with GIZ / quality assurance of deliverables;
• Selection, mobilization and provision international and local consultants;
• Policy and technical advice to Ministry of Health and NPHIL;
• Policy and technical advice to the Ministry of Health, Disease Prevention and Control
  Division (DPC) and Community Health Services Division (CHSH), on the
  implementation of IDSR and CEBS;
• Representation of GIZ in Technical Working Groups at national level;
• Revision of IDSR and CEBS training materials;
• Implementation of IDSR measures in the project intervention area (training, community interventions);
• Coordination, design, development, performance and evaluation of a simulation exercise;
• Contribution to GIZ knowledge management;
• Reporting.