Lebanon

The Lebanese Red Cross started implementing community-based surveillance in early 2022, beginning by drafting CBS guidelines, enhancing call centres at the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) level, and developing CBS training for municipalities.

Lebanese Red Cross gathers and relays CBS information to a coordination group that includes UNICEF, WHO, and MOPH colleagues. Their teams promote the MOPH hotline number (1787) during regular outreach activities to encourage community members to report suspected cases. Lebanese Red Cross volunteers enter the collected data into the DHIS2 system, which is the digitalized system utilized by the MOPH Epidemiological Surveillance Unit (ESU). This enables the ESU Unit to identify potential outbreaks at an early stage, initiate investigations and to respond swiftly and effectively to reported cases. The Lebanese Red Cross reviews the ESU Bulletin released by MOPH on their official website on a weekly basis to be aware of potential cluster cases or positive cases. This information is used to select the locations of their mobile medical units (MMUs), which can reinforce the CBS structure and case referrals.