AKIPRESS.COM - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) handed over a new web-based system for electronic notification of infectious diseases to Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Health and Social Development during an official ceremony. This system improves disease surveillance by providing an electronic registry of notifiable infectious diseases, the US Embassy said. 

CDC and ICAP at Columbia University, a global public health organization, began developing the emergency notification and registration system in January of 2021 at the request of Kyrgyzstan’s Department for Disease Prevention and State Sanitary Epidemiologic Surveillance.

“Electronic surveillance systems, such as this one, help public health professionals save time and, as a result, save lives. We are proud to help Kyrgyz infectious disease experts by providing them this software to help in the fight against COVID-19 and other diseases. This project is just one of many examples of our partnership in the field of public health. Today, we are building on a decades long commitment to improving public health in Central Asia,” said Daniel Singer, CDC Director for Central Asia.

Accurate data acquired through the new system will help Kyrgyz health professionals get a faster and better picture of how infectious diseases spread in the country, permitting them to distribute lifesaving resources accordingly.

CDC, the United States’ leading public health agency, has a long history of collaboration with Central Asian governments on public health issues. CDC opened its first office in Almaty in 1995 and today it has offices in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. CDC works with each Ministry of Health to strengthen local laboratory, disease surveillance, and workforce capacity so that the countries can better prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks.