Strengthening Infectious Disease Surveillance in Nigeria: A Focused Scoping Review of SORMAS and the Electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System

Background

Re-emerging infectious diseases continue to present major public health challenges in low-resource settings where surveillance systems often operate under significant infrastructural, financial and workforce constraints. Nigeria has experienced recurrent outbreaks of Lassa fever, cholera, yellow fever and mpox during the past decade, highlighting persistent weaknesses in disease detection, reporting and outbreak response. Digital surveillance systems have increasingly been introduced to strengthen epidemic preparedness and improve surveillance performance, yet evidence describing the contribution of Nigeria's two principal electronic surveillance platforms remains fragmented across disease-specific investigations and implementation studies. This paper synthesises the available evidence on the Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) and the electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (eIDSR) system, examining their contribution to strengthening infectious disease surveillance within Nigeria's public health system.

Methods

A focused narrative synthesis was undertaken to examine digital tools for managing re-emerging infectious diseases in Nigeria. The review followed established scoping review methodology and identified studies published between 2015 and 2026. Twenty-three eligible publications were included, from which evidence relating specifically to SORMAS and eIDSR was synthesised. Findings were organised around surveillance performance, reporting timeliness, data quality, outbreak detection and implementation experiences.

Results

The evidence consistently demonstrates that both surveillance systems have strengthened infectious disease surveillance in Nigeria. SORMAS has enhanced case-based surveillance through real-time reporting, electronic case management, laboratory integration and improved contact tracing. The eIDSR system has strengthened routine surveillance reporting, improved reporting completeness, accelerated notification of priority diseases and enhanced communication between peripheral health facilities and surveillance authorities. Despite these advances, implementation continues to be influenced by infrastructure limitations, workforce capacity and long-term sustainability.

Conclusion

SORMAS and eIDSR have become integral components of Nigeria's surveillance architecture and have substantially improved surveillance performance across several epidemic-prone diseases. Continued investment in infrastructure, interoperability, workforce development and surveillance governance will be essential to maximise their long-term contribution to epidemic preparedness and health system resilience.

Digital surveillance, SORMAS, electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response, infectious disease surveillance, outbreak response, Nigeria, public health informatics

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