Grenada strengthens disease surveillance with new online national guidelines

St. George's, Grenada, 9 September 2026 (PAHO/WHO) - Forty-five health workers from across Grenada's health system and partner sectors have been trained to use the country's new online Integrated Health Surveillance Guidelines, following a three-day national end-user workshop.

Convened by the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Religious Affairs in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) through support from the Pandemic Fund Project for the Eastern Caribbean, the workshop was the final activity in the development of the guidelines platform before it migrates to the Grenada Government Data Center. The activity was supported through the Pandemic Fund.

The guidelines bring together in one place the information a health worker needs to recognise and report a notifiable event: case definitions, notification pathways from facility to district to national level, reporting timelines, laboratory confirmation and specimen referral procedures, and the roles and responsibilities of each unit and sector along the reporting chain.

Presenting them on an online platform allows the Ministry of Health to update content centrally and have every facility working from the current version, rather than from printed copies of differing vintages. The guidelines are designed to align national practice with the International Health Regulations (2005) and apply a One Health approach linking human, animal and environmental health.

The workshop brought together participants representing the Ministry of Health headquarters and all health districts; the General Hospital, Princess Alice Hospital, Princess Royal Hospital and Mt. Gay Hospital; Gouyave Health Centre; the Epidemiology Unit; the National Infectious Disease Control Unit; the Environmental Health Department and Vector Control Division; the Pathology Laboratory; the Ministry of Education; Her Majesty's Prison; and private and institutional care providers.

Participants navigated the live platform on their phones and tablets, then worked in small groups to trace how a notifiable event would move through the system.

On the final day, participants completed a two-hour simulation exercise built on the platform, working through a vaccine-preventable disease case and using the guidelines to identify the case definition, the notification pathway, the reporting timeline and the responsible officer at each step. The exercise tested whether a health worker could find the right answer under time pressure, which is the condition under which the guidelines will actually be used.

Dr. Solange Kobi-Jackson, Advisor, Family Health and Life Course for Primary Health Care, PAHO/WHO Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Countries, said the choice of a vaccine-preventable disease for the simulation was deliberate. "High vaccination coverage is what keeps a disease out of a country. Surveillance is what tells you the day it comes back - and in the Caribbean, where measles and rubella have been absent for a generation, the officer who sees the first case may never have seen one before," Dr. Kobi-Jackson said. "An officer does not need to carry the case definition in their head. They need to know where to find it, and to find the same answer whether they are at the General Hospital or at a district health centre. That is what these guidelines now give Grenada."

Surveillance depends on notification reaching the Epidemiology Unit from wherever a case first presents, and the workshop extended beyond the Ministry of Health to the education sector, correctional services and private care providers - widening the base of the national notification network and giving practical effect to the One Health orientation of the guidelines.

The guidelines were developed through stakeholder consultations at district and national level and two validation meetings in which the roles and responsibilities of each sector and unit were cross-examined using a One Health approach, before sign-off by the Permanent Secretary and the Chief Medical Officer. A contracted developer worked with PAHO/WHO and the National Epidemiologist to structure the site and has delivered back-end training to the Ministry's IT team, the Epidemiology Unit and PAHO/WHO personnel so that content can be maintained nationally.

The National Epidemiologist Ms. Larissa Mark stated that "Surveillance guidelines only work if the person at the clinic counter on a Friday afternoon can find the answer in them. Putting them online and putting them in front of the officers who have to use them, is what turns a document into a working system."

Following the workshop, the platform will migrate from the development environment to the Grenada Government Data Center, and the Ministry of Health will schedule refresher sessions tailored by cadre for units and facilities not represented at this workshop. Feedback collected from participants during the three days will inform a final revision of the content before hand-over.

A comparable end-user training was delivered in Saint Lucia earlier under the same initiative, where the guidelines were presented over five days. Both countries now have their national integrated surveillance guidelines available as a maintained online reference for the health workforce.