Ogun State has distributed mobile phones and other technological equipment to disease surveillance officers across its local government areas to strengthen the detection and reporting of potential disease outbreaks.

The devices were donated by the Artificial Intelligence Application for One Health (AIA4OneHealth) project to support the state’s IDS-Master surveillance system.

The handover ceremony, held on Tuesday in collaboration with the Ogun State Ministry of Health, was aimed at improving community-based surveillance and enabling frontline health workers to report public health threats in real time.

Receiving the equipment on behalf of the state government, the Director of Public Health, Dr Bamiselu, commended the project team for supporting the state’s epidemic preparedness efforts.

He said the intervention would improve the state’s capacity to detect and track infectious diseases and strengthen efforts to contain their spread across communities.

The mobile phones were distributed to Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers across all local government areas to facilitate the timely reporting of health events that could pose risks to public health.

The programme also featured a review of surveillance data submitted by the local government areas.

Speaking on behalf of the research team, the project’s principal investigator, Professor Adesina Sodiya, highlighted the ongoing development of the IDS-Master platform, planned system improvements and the need to sustain its operations.

Sodiya stressed the importance of sustainable funding and institutional support to maintain the platform’s daily activities and expand its digital infrastructure.

As part of efforts to improve reporting performance, the project recognised Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area for submitting the highest volume of quality reports.

The local government’s Disease Surveillance and Notification Officer received a special gift in recognition of the achievement.

Sodiya also announced plans to introduce a monthly reward system to recognise local government areas with the highest levels of accurate and comprehensive reporting.

The AIA4OneHealth project is sponsored by the International Development Research Centre through the Artificial Intelligence for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness network.

The project uses artificial intelligence and digital technology to strengthen community-level disease surveillance, improve the early identification of potential outbreaks and support timely public health responses.