Driving Public Health Insights: A Transformative Approach to Disease Surveillance

We collaborated with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on a significant longitudinal household cohort study in South Africa. This work was central to strengthening the country's system for monitoring vaccine-preventable illnesses and informing national immunisation policy.

The main challenge was the lack of a comprehensive, real-time picture of population immunity against multiple key pathogens. Monitoring vaccine impact and disease spread typically involved several separate surveillance efforts. This study aimed to address this by simultaneously assessing population-level immunity for a wide range of diseases, including SARS-CoV-2, measles, rubella, pertussis, diphtheria, influenza, RSV, hepatitis A, and hepatitis E.

From 2022 to 2025, we led the data collection and management of the SARS-CoV-2 and Multi-pathogen Serosurveillance (SAMS) study. We managed a complex cohort of 1,500 participants in both Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, initially, with later phases concentrating in Gauteng. We undertook follow-up data collection twice a year, gathering detailed records on vaccination and illness history, anthropometric measurements, and blood samples. These samples were analysed using a novel multi-pathogen immunoassay to assess seroprevalence for all target pathogens simultaneously.

To ensure the integrity of this multi-year programme, we designed and implemented a next-generation data ecosystem. We embedded logic checks and automated quality controls directly into the digital data collection forms. This approach eliminated common errors at the source, enabled real-time monitoring of field operations, and significantly accelerated the data cleaning process. Our integrated system allowed for automated reporting and dashboard generation, ensuring the final dataset was clean and immediately ready for NICD’s use.

The study’s impact was delivering a high-quality, consolidated dataset which provided a comprehensive, evidence-based understanding of the population's immunity profile. This reinforced confidence in the data, helping provide useful information to shape national vaccination strategies, and tested an innovative serosurveillance platform for public health use.