Assessment of the Epidemiological Surveillance System for Bacterial Meningitis in Benin from 2016 to 2018: Case-by-Case Surveillance

Abstract

With the introduction of the new meningitis A conjugate vaccine in 2012, Benin has opted for case-by-case surveillance for bacterial meningitis. The study aims to assess the case-by-case surveillance system for the meningitis epidemic in Benin during the period 2016 to 2018. A retrospective and evaluative study with a mixed approach (qualitative and quantitative) was conducted, on the three sites identified for sentinel surveillance of meningitis in Benign. The evaluation of the performance of the surveillance system was based on the updated guidelines of the Center for Disease Prevention and Control to evaluate a public health surveillance system. All criteria except sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value were measured. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with the agents of the surveillance system surveyed and the normative documents as well as the notice forms were examined. This study reveals that all the centers had the case definition and notification forms. The ratio of notified cases to registered cases was 0.77. We found that the monitoring system in place had five levels. The system performance was recognized with simplicity at 80.8%, good acceptability (completeness: 98.5%; Promptitude: 88.9%) and responsiveness of 85%. The completeness of the health facilities was 45%. This study shows that it is imperative to strengthen the knowledge of the actors involved in epidemiological surveillance through periodic training to improve the performance of the surveillance system.