The SEARO Detection, Verification and Risk Assessment (DVA) team is part of the SEARO Health Emergencies Department, under the Health Emergency Information & Risk Assessment Unit (HIM), and one of its functions is to serve as the WHO International Health Regulations Regional Contact Point.

As the WHO International Health Regulations Regional Contact Point, the SEARO DVA team provides support for Member States of the Region of South-East Asia in establishing and implementing functional integrated early warning and response systems in order to improve early detection and rapid response to epidemic-prone diseases with pandemic potential and other public health emergencies.

The DVA team collaborates with WHO headquarters, Regional Offices, SEAR Country Offices and Member States in carrying out:

• Event surveillance
  
• Risk assessment
• Information management and dissemination

The rapid scale-up of the response has been accompanied by an increasing emphasis on measurable indicators and results. These include programme monitoring data, behavioural and biological trends data and evaluation of programmes. The increasing demands on country monitoring and evaluation systems can only be met if better systems are built and supported.

WHO’s efforts in M&E focus on the health sector. One of WHO’s main activities is the development of guidelines and tools for monitoring and evaluation of health sector programmes. The guidelines have been developed in close collaboration with other international agencies and organizations, and major donors with strong country inputs. The focus is on national level monitoring. In addition, WHO is facilitating the collection of data on specific indicators of the health sector response at the country level.