Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) in the WHO African Region now goes beyond the scope of Communicable Diseases. Non-communicable health conditions and events are now a priority in IDSR.

In order to reflect this change of environment, the CDER has been renamed IDSR Epidemiological Report. This July 2010 issue attempts to provide information on the burden of some regional priority diseases such as cholera, cerebrospinal meningitis, dengue fever, influenza, poliomyelitis and yellow fever in the WHO African Region.

The data presented were collected through the implementation of the Integrated Disease Surveillance strategy in the Region and, in the case of polio, through the polio surveillance system.

Some questions remain unanswered in this report. For instance: is the recent reduction in wild poliovirus transmission sustainable? What do the increased cholera and meningitis case fatality rates in the Region tell us about the case management capacities of Member States? Do Member States have the laboratory capacity to differentiate dengue fever cases from diseases such as malaria and chikungunya which are known to co-exist with this disease in some countries?

We hope you will find the contents of this report useful. Your comments and recommendations are most welcome at the secretariat of the IDSR Epidemiological Report.