HOSPITAL SURVEILLANCE
Working closely with the Bangladesh MOHFW, we have established facility-based surveillance within the MOHFW sub-district hospital outpatient clinics and inpatient pediatric wards in the study area for potential IPD case detection, specimen collection, and transport. Project physicians who are trained and standardized to the study research protocols staff these facilities.
We have developed a network with the first-level facilities and private health care providers in both the formal and informal sectors within the study area and encourage them to refer sick children with suspected pneumococcal disease to the designated study hospitals. We have also included Sylhet Medical College and selected private tertiary level referral hospitals in Sylhet City in this network, which are frequent referral sites for children with symptoms of meningitis in our study area. We have mapped the first-level clinics and private health care providers in the study area including MOHFW’s Family Welfare Centers (FWCs), Community Clinics, NGO-supported clinics, village doctors and drug sellers. All of these providers are given an orientation on the study and are requested to refer eligible cases to the designated hospitals. The orientation includes standardized definitions of suspected pneumonia and meningitis cases and instruction on keeping a list of cases by village.
