Notifiable diseases: Testing and treating every case to get ahead of the curve

Abstract

This article explains how making a disease notifiable by law is a core component of a robust and well-functioning health system. Mechanisms to rapidly detect and report existing or emerging infectious diseases in a timely manner are key to disease control and elimination. Using malaria in Asia-Pacific as a case in point, we explore different policy considerations involved in making malaria a notifiable disease. These include the timing of legislative changes at different stages of elimination, investing in adequate infrastructure for a robust surveillance system that can support targeted interventions, and the importance of involving all sectors in the delivery of malaria services to detect, report and respond to every case. The article explains how frameworks to report on notifiable diseases, in this case malaria, contribute to improved regional health security. | INTRODUCTIONResilient and responsive health systems are key to effectively preventing, detecting and responding to global health threats. This has been further demonstrated by global efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing efforts to control and eliminate long-existingThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.