Customer Profile
Voxiva collaborated with two organizations to deploy AESSIMS in Andhra Pradesh, India: Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and the Government of Andhra Pradesh. PATH is an international NGO based in Seattle, Washington. The Children’s Vaccine Program (CVP), is a PATH program that aims to improve Japanese Encephalitis disease surveillance, accelerate development of an improved vaccine, and integrate vaccine immunization programs in Asia. Andhra Pradesh is the fifth largest state in India, and is the biggest and most populous state in the south of India.

Situation and Challenges
Throughout Asia, up to 50,000 people a year become infected with Japanese encephalitis (JE), a mosquito-spread disease that primarily affects children under 15. The disease is fatal for 30 percent of its victims, with half of its survivors suffering long-term neurological disability. While there is a vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis, efforts to eradicate the disease have been hindered by the vaccine’s high cost and the lack of accurate information about the true disease burden. JE is endemic in 12 out of 23 districts in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.

Solution
In 2004, PATH, Voxiva, and the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) launched a pilot project called Acute Encephalitis Syndrome Surveillance Information Management System (AESSIMS) in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh. AESSIMS is designed to build health capacity at the field level by enabling front-line health workers to report disease incidence through an innovative combination of telephone and web based technology that leverages available infrastructure. AESSIMS enables health officials to better understand the scope of disease impact and strategically allocate resources to areas with the highest prevalence and need. Analytical tools such as a GIS-based map provide visual representations of JE prevalence.

  District Level: Real-time information enables officials to readily identify and respond to disease outbreaks. The system generates aggregate reports (daily, weekly, monthly), which allow officials to monitor reported cases and track program progress. Officials can also use the system’s analytic tools to assess epidemiological trends and coordinate strategic medium-and long-term public health interventions.

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AESSIMS GIS Map of Real-Time Disease Information

  Facility Level: Front-line health workers can rapidly communicate and share real-time information on detected cases. Health professionals can use any phone or Internet-connected device to report suspected and lab-confirmed cases of acute encephalitis. The system also facilitates communication and information sharing among different levels of the health system.

Benefits
The benefits of AESSIMS include:

  Leverages Existing Infrastructure: AESSIMS offers the benefits of modern information and communication technologies (e.g., real-time data transfer) in infrastructure-limited settings. Health workers can use the phone or any internet connected device to report disease cases, communicate, and retrieve information.

  Single Repository of Information: AESSIMS captures reported information, and makes it immediately accessible to system users (e.g., health workers, lab workers, program managers, and government health officials). Reported information is stored in a summarized, de-identified format in an online database that can be visualized, analyzed, updated, or exported from the website.

  Improved Coordination and Outbreak Response: Minimize disconnected and redundant efforts by enabling health programs and officials to collaboratively work on disease prevention and control. Government health officials can receive real-time reports on disease cases from front-line health workers, and can respond to disease trends captured in real-time.

Upon successful completion of the pilot program, AESSIMS may be expanded in India and in other countries in Asia. The long-term goals of this project are to provide national and regional health programs an avenue for more efficient information sharing, strengthen clinical services, and improve national and regional disease surveillance networks.