SciDevNet: Surveillance is key to eliminating and preventing infectious diseases. Early detection offers the chance of rapid response, which can stop a handful of cases or a few clusters of illness from becoming something far worse.
Take polio. Surveillance underpins the current global eradication effort: without it, we wouldn't know where or how the virus circulates, as 90 per cent of cases have no symptoms, which makes it difficult to identify them. As a result of early detection, however, 99 per cent...