Strengthening Surveillance of Infectious Diseases in Belgium

Surveillance systems at different levels of the healthcare system (hospitals, laboratories, nursing homes, primary care) are needed in order to monitor the occurrence and impact of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of having continuous, automated surveillance systems that provide the opportunity to swiftly include new emerging pathogens and threats (pandemic preparedness). Furthermore data linkage between different these surveillance systems and/or external relevant datasets is crucial for monitoring, investigating, and controlling infectious diseases. The BE-SURVID project builds further on the COVID-19 experience towards such integrated surveillance systems in Belgium for the period 2025-2029. The proposal has been established in close collaboration with regional and national stakeholders, and taken into account EU guidelines and initiatives. The general objectives of this project are: 1. Implementation of digitalized surveillance systems at general practitioner, laboratory and hospital level by system to system data transfer and secondary use of electronic health records. 2. Implementation of integrated surveillance systems by linkage of surveillance data with other relevant data sources (clinical and epidemiological metadata, socio-demographic data, health insurance data, vaccination,...). 3. Develop automated signal detection systems and modelling activities. 4. Develop a data governance strategy for infectious disease surveillance in Belgium, taken into account technical and legal (GDPR) elements and initiatives such as the creation of the Belgian health data authority and the European health data space. The project aim is to enhance the digitalization and integration of several surveillance systems rather than one specific one given the strategic importance for public health as well as the timeline and funding of this call. Concrete outcomes are related to strengthening of surveillance of respiratory infection