Monitoring and evaluation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response in selected districts in Tanzania

Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) is a strategy developed by the World Health Organization. Regional Office for Africa in 1998. The Ministry of Health; Tanzania has adopted this strategy for strengthening communicable diseases surveillance in the country. In order to improve the effectiveness of the implementation of IDSRmonitoring and evaluating the performance of the surveillance system; identifying areas that require strengthening and taking action is important. This paper presents the findings of baseline data collection for the period October - December 2003 in 12 districts representing eight regions of Tanzania. The districts involved were Mbulu; Babati; odoma Rural; Mpwapwa; Igunga; Tabora Urban; Mwanza Urban; Muleba; Nkasi; Sumbawanga Rural; Tunduru and Masasi. Results are grouped into three key areas: surveillance reporting; use of surveillance data and management of the IDSR system. In general; reporting systems are weak; both in terms of receiving all reports from all acilities in a timely manner; and in managing those reports at the district level. Routine analysis of surveillance data is not being done at facility or district levels; and districts do not monitor the performance of their surveillance system. There was also good communication and coordination with other sectors in terms of sharing information and resources. It is important that districts' capacity on IDSR is strengthened to enable them monitor and evaluate their own performance using established indicators

Advanced algorithms of motion estimation for an elder at living room using Principal Component Analysis / 대한의료정보학회지

OBJECTIVE: Development of telemedicine for an elder has been an important research area in an aging society, and effective Personal Emergency Response System(PERS) can provide exact medical decision and prompt treatment under emergency conditions. Previous studies have been focused on adapting troublesome sensors or passive calling system to monitor the old in their house. However, these previous systems might have limited applications due to its difficulties in usage and restraints in their daily activities, especially in the emergency. METHODS: In this study, the real time algorithms using surveillance camera was developed to monitor their pose change, such as emergency and falling motion. To estimate the motion of elder people, this research use a ratio of eigenvectors of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique. RESULTS: In this system, no additional motion sensors or devices were applied to the object and it can be automatically controlled and monitor the old from a distance. It was found that this system can successfully monitor the old in living room regardless of surveillance camera angles and a silhouette size depending camera distance as using image processing and PCA. CONCLUSION: This algorithm was validated by experiments in a living room and this technique can be applicable to home monitoring and further applications.