Dakar – This week, over 80 specialists from 19 African nations have converged in Dakar, Senegal, collaborating intensely to elevate the quality, consistency, and practical application of data pertinent to polio surveillance and outbreak response. This crucial endeavor marks a significant stride towards strengthening disease detection capabilities, strategically guiding vaccination initiatives, and ultimately safeguarding children across the entire African Region from poliomyelitis.

The collaborative effort is part of the “Workshop on Data Quality Assessment and Coordination of Polio Workstreams,” an event meticulously organized by the Polio Eradication Programme (PEP) of the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO). The workshop is scheduled to run from June 8 to June 19, 2026.

Bringing together key representatives from national Ministries of Health, specialized national polio reference laboratories, WHO country offices, WHO’s Regional Office for Africa, and its Headquarters, the workshop aims to fortify the essential data systems that underpin effective polio surveillance, enable swift responses to outbreaks, and facilitate evidence-based decision-making throughout the African Region.

Participants are diligently scrutinizing data quality across several critical components of the polio control program. These areas include Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) surveillance, environmental surveillance, laboratory surveillance, electronic surveillance, and supplementary immunization activities (SIAs). Furthermore, they are dissecting the primary challenges that impact data quality, with the objective of pinpointing persistent obstacles and formulating actionable solutions to ensure the consistent and timely transmission of dependable data.

This intensive phase incorporates a series of hands-on sessions, utilizing advanced digital tools and solutions developed by the regional team. The goal is to accelerate the adoption of data-centric approaches at every operational level. Discussions are also delving into the practical utilization and ongoing maintenance of various digital platforms that support robust information systems, thereby guaranteeing prompt data collection, analysis, and reporting, alongside informed, evidence-based decision-making.

The workshop was officially inaugurated by the WHO Representative in Senegal, Dr. Yao N’da Konan Michel. In his opening remarks, Dr. Yao extended profound gratitude to the Government and Ministry of Health of Senegal for graciously hosting this vital gathering in Dakar. He also commended Senegal’s commendable achievements in combating infectious diseases throughout the Region.

Dr. Yao reiterated that while the WHO African Region achieved a historic milestone in 2020 by being certified free of indigenous wild poliovirus, the enduring threat posed by circulating variant polioviruses underscores the imperative for unyielding vigilance in polio eradication efforts. He stressed the paramount importance of high-quality surveillance, swift outbreak containment, impactful vaccination campaigns, and the capacity to identify and bridge immunity gaps wherever they arise. At the core of these critical efforts, he emphasized, lies a resilient digital ecosystem bolstered by robust data governance.

Following the opening ceremony, Mr. Kebba Touray, Team Lead for Data and Information Management within the Polio Eradication Programme, presented the workshop’s objectives and methodology. Mr. Touray articulated that this workshop embodies a collective resolve to safeguard and leverage the program’s rich legacy in data management, thereby sustainably enhancing public health surveillance systems across Africa. He acknowledged that this sophisticated system has been cultivated through the unwavering commitment and leadership demonstrated by WHO, several years of targeted funding from the Gates Foundation, and the technical support provided by other invaluable partners.

Mr. Touray urged participants to maximize these two weeks of intensive work, establishing robust mechanisms to address key data quality deficiencies across all program workstreams. He cautioned that a lack of progress in this domain would severely complicate the assessment of surveillance sensitivity, the monitoring of SIA quality, the analysis of outbreak response effectiveness, and the precise targeting of risk-based interventions. Such a scenario, he warned, would inevitably jeopardize the significant strides made towards polio eradication in the Region.