The importance of surveillance in cases of and mortality from the COVID-19 epidemic in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2020.

Corrêa, Paulo Roberto Lopes; Ishitani, Lenice Harumi; Abreu, Daisy Maria Xavier de; Teixeira, Renato Azeredo; Marinho, Fatima; França, Elisabeth Barboza

OBJECTIVES This study aims to describe the actions carried out by the epidemiological surveillance system in Belo Horizonte to address the COVID-19 epidemic and the timeless of the data for detecting transmission in 2020. METHODS The sources of information used by the epidemiological surveillance of the municipality for COVID-19 were identified and the temporal distribution and interval for detection of confirmed cases of the disease were analyzed. RESULTS The city's epidemiological surveillance uses outpatient, hospital, public and private laboratory notifications as data sources. For reporting COVID-19 cases in official information systems, there is also an active search of laboratory results linked to suspected deaths investigated. From January to April 2020, 1,449 hospitalized cases of COVID-19 were reported, the first case being detected in late February 2020. Of the total 1,025 laboratory samples of cases hospitalized after the 8th epidemiological week, 87 (8.5%) of COVID-19 cases were confirmed. The median time between the onset of symptoms and the release of laboratory results was 12 days for the analyzed period. CONCLUSION Epidemiological surveillance uses several data sources to monitor and analyze the transmission of COVID-19. The timeliness of this system to detect cases of the disease is compromised by the delay in the release of laboratory results, which has been a considerable challenge for adequate surveillance.