SMS Disease Reporting System Changes Surveillance and Monitoring Approach in the country

Reporters from Vanimo, East Sepik Province near the Indonesian Border 

THE National Agriculture and quarantine Authority (NAQIA) is now able to send reports of sick and dead animals around the country much faster using a new short messaging service (SMS) system. Thanks to the Support of the Australian Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and AusAID, the ICT Section and the Animal Health section of NAQIA.

The SMS reporting is the first animal diease reporting project to be developed in the country.The project involves sending SMS messages through mobile phones to report any sick or dead animals much faster.

NAQIA officers, provincial DPI livestock officers, including NGOs stationed in strategic locations all over PNG, can now send messages using mobiles phones.

The messages sent are automatically recorded on an online database, monitored by NAQIA. Project coordinator and acting animal health programme manager for field services Dr Estelo Quimbo said reports collated in the past seven days from around Papua New Guinea are sent to their online database every Monday for analysing and for possible field disease investigations. “Äs a result of using this new SMS reporting system, sending and investigating disease reports can now be done in the shortest possible time,” he said. “I can say that we can now monitor on what is happening on the ground in the most remote areas of PNG and collate all these SMS reports in our online database.”

This project was developed in 2012 and was implemented in January 2013 by NAQIA in partnership with the Australian Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and AusAID.

NAQIA’s ICT manager Aaron Uforty said: “We are utilising the mobile phone network and installing the application in mobile phones so that officers reporting can use the mobile phone to send reports just like sending text message. However, you don't do alot of typing, you answer yes or no and select options and enter numbers and you are done. The messages sent are automatically recorded on an online database, monitored by NAQIA."

Project coordinator and acting animal health programme manager for field services Dr Estelo Quimbo said reports collated in the past seven days from around Papua New Guinea are sent to their online database every Monday for analysing and for possible field disease investigations. One of these successful reports sent was the recent New Castle Disease outbreak in Vanimo, East Sepik Province, PNG along the Indonesian Boarder.

Prepared for media by NAQIA Publications: Gary Fagan