Brief Background
| BRIEF BACKGROUND |
The Epidemiology (EPI) Department of San Lazaro Hospital (SLH) was established in 1992 as to signify commitment to Department of Health (DOH), being the government’s tertiary referral hospital for Infectious and Tropical (IT) Diseases. SLH became a sentinel surveillance site of the DOH for various infectious diseases including emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. The goal of the department is to generate continuous timely and accurate IT disease surveillance information that will be utilized to guide and/or notify senior health officers of the hospital, the Epidemiology Bureau of DOH, the Center for Health Development (CHD)-National Capital Region (NCR) and other stakeholders for appropriate & timely response or intervention or for policy - decision making, planning and budgeting to decrease mortality/disability and/or disease morbidity.
In response and compliance to the DOH Administrative Order (AO) # 2007-0036 dated October 1, 2007, re:” Guidelines on the Philippine Integrated Disease Surveillance & Response (PIDSR)” which states among others that “The Hospital Licensing Team of the CHD-NCR shall track and monitor the compliance of public and private hospitals in the implementation of PIDSR as part of the requirement for renewal of license to operate”. So, since 2009 the EPI Department has been implementing the DOH-PIDSR by establishing the SLH-PIDSR Team. Aside from the regular IT disease surveillance, the EPI Department concurrently carries out PIDSR activities specifically the following:
1. VPD (Vaccine Preventable Disease) Surveillance which specifically focuses on measles-rubella, tetanus neonatorum, Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) or poliomyelitis.
2. Rotavirus Surveillance (since September 2012)
3. Laboratory Based Dengue Surveillance (since July 2014)
4. Emerging & Reemerging Infectious Disease (ID) Surveillance (SARS, H1N1, MersCoV, Ebola)
5. Other infectious disease included in PIDSR
