Layout 1 ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2012. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ISDS 2012 Conference Abstracts Evaluation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) using Bacillary Dysentery as a Priority Disease, Tanzania, 2012 Alfred G. Mwanyika*1, Senga Sembuche1 and Agricola Joachim2 1Tanzania Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (TFELTP), Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania; 2Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania Objective To determine whether the IDSR system meets its purpose and ob- jectives, to evaluate the system attributes, and provide recommenda- tions to improve the IDSR system, using the example of bacillary dysentery, a priority disease in Tanzania. Introduction Each year Ministry of Health and Social welfare of Tanzania under Epidemiology Section has been reporting many suspected cases of Shigella throughout the country. However only fewer laboratories have been reporting the confirmed cases. Methods The study was conducted between November 2011and February 2012.Hospital staff including nurses, physicians and laboratory per- sonnel and other stakeholders from the Ministry of Health and So- cial Welfare (MOHSW) were enrolled in the study. Data was collected from a review of documents, questionnaires and interview of stakeholders. Surveillance system attributes were evaluated using updated guidelines for evaluating public health surveillance system (2007) from Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Results Questionnaires were administered to fifteen health personnel from four regional hospitals. Four health staff from epidemiology and lab- oratory section of MOHSW were interviewed. Only one regional hos- pital laboratory was conducting laboratory diagnosis for bacillary dysentery and sending reports to MOHSW. Data from this laboratory was reviewed. Out of 641 records from bacillary dysentery testing, 271 (42.3%) did not include age data, 5 (0.78%) missed sex, 624 (97.3%) missed the district where the patient came from, 26 (4.4%) did not include information on specimen quality, 1(0.2%) had no re- port of pathogens found and 636 (99.2%) did not include antimicro- bial sensitivity testing (AST). The Predictive Value Positive (PVP) of the system was 0.62%. One (6.7%) of the health workers was trained in IDSR. Conclusions IDSR in Tanzania generally is not performing well as only one (25%) of the four visited hospitals conducts and reports laboratory diagnosis of bacillary dysentery. However the system is representa- tive as it covers all regions of the United Republic of Tanzania and all ages of people. The system is flexible since National IDSR guideline (2001) was revised in 2011. More emphasis should be placed on strengthening laboratory capacity in disease diagnosis and reporting at all levels. Keywords Surveillance; Evaluation; IDSR; Bacillary dysentery Acknowledgments We acknowledge TFELTP and regional hospitals for their corporations to achieve this study. References Monthly diseases reports. Ministry of health and social welfare of Tan- zania. www.moh.go.tz *Alfred G. Mwanyika E-mail: geofalfred@yahoo.com Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 5(1):e132, 2013