Public health surveillance for COVID-19: interim guidance
Interim guidance
Overview
This document summarizes current WHO guidance for public health surveillance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in humans caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
The global goals to end the COVID-19 emergency are to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission and the impact of COVID-19 disease. Surveillance remains fundamental to understanding the evolution of the virus, the risk factors for severe disease and the impact of vaccination and public health and social measures. WHO continues to recommend maintaining and strengthening surveillance to achieve the core surveillance objectives for COVID-19 such as early warning for changes in epidemiological patterns, monitoring trends in morbidity and mortality, monitoring burden of disease on health care capacity and incorporating strategic and geographically representative genomic surveillance.
This guidance is specific to the current setting of the acute COVID-19 emergency as previous versions and includes the new elements below:
- updated WHO case definitions, contact definitions, priority groups and settings in line with the latest contact tracing and quarantine guidance
- updates of core and enhanced surveillance objectives and methods in various settings, including environmental and animal surveillance
- updated guidance on surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the integration of sampling for genomic surveillance in SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies
- updates of COVID-19 surveillance reporting requirements to WHO, which includes the addition of new ICU admissions for COVID-19 treatment.
Related
Global Surveillance of COVID-19: WHO process for weekly reporting aggregated data
See also: End-to-end integration of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza sentinel surveillance: revised interim guidance (31 January 2022)
