What is Disease Surveillance?

Disease surveillance is an important tools of any public health-care programme that serves the following essential purposes

• For monitoring the progress of ongoing medical interventions for disease reduction
  
• For early detection of outbreaks to initiate investigative and control measures in disease control decisions
  
• For the evaluation of the efficacy of surveillance initiatives
  
• To provide a scientific basis for implementation of an appropriate health-care policy and the allocation of resources in the primary health-care system