• For German
    research organisations
  • Research landscape
  • News and research areas
  • Your goal
  • Our service
Why Germany
  • R&D policy framework
  • Research infrastructure
  • Research funding system
Universities
  • Universities of applied sciences
Research institutes
  • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
  • Helmholtz Association
  • Leibniz Association
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • Academies of sciences and humanities
  • Federal institutions
  • Länder institutions
  • Research infrastructure
  • Industrial research
Industrial research
Top universities
Research News
Global Health
Bioeconomy
InnoHealth
EnergInno
Future of Work
COVID-19 in Germany
Cancer Research
Bachelor or master
PhD
  • Good reasons
  • Two ways to get your PhD
  • Find your PhD position
  • How to apply for a PhD
  • Funding programmes
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Postdoc
  • Good reasons
  • Career options & dual careers
  • Funding programmes
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Advanced research
  • Good reasons
  • Career options & dual careers
  • Funding & awards
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Research Position
  • Find a job
  • Potential employers
  • Research fields
Events & online talks
  • Events
  • Online talks
  • Innovation Week
Research news
Newsletter
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletter 2022
  • Newsletter 2021
Our publications
Success stories
Link to German Institutions research organisations
  • Research landscape
    • Overview Research landscape
    • Why Germany
      • Overview Why Germany
      • R&D policy framework
      • Research infrastructure
        • Overview Research infrastructure
        • DESY – Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
        • DKRZ – German Climate Computing Centre
        • Research vessel Polarstern
        • FLASH – free-electron laser in Hamburg
      • Research funding system
        • Overview Research funding system
        • Government funding
        • How does government funding work?
    • Universities
      • Overview Universities
      • Universities of applied sciences
    • Research institutes
      • Overview Research institutes
      • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
      • Helmholtz Association
      • Leibniz Association
      • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
      • Academies of sciences and humanities
      • Federal institutions
      • Länder institutions
      • Research infrastructure
      • Industrial research
    • Industrial research
    • Top universities
  • News and research areas
    • Overview News and research areas
    • Research News
    • Global Health
    • Bioeconomy
    • InnoHealth
    • EnergInno
    • Future of Work
    • COVID-19 in Germany
    • Cancer Research
  • Your goal
    • Overview Your goal
    • Bachelor or master
    • PhD
      • Overview PhD
      • Good reasons
      • Two ways to get your PhD
      • Find your PhD position
      • How to apply for a PhD
      • Funding programmes
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Postdoc
      • Overview Postdoc
      • Good reasons
      • Career options & dual careers
        • Overview Career options & dual careers
        • Professorship
        • Postdoc positions
        • Junior research group leader
        • Researcher in industry
        • Research stays and visits
        • International collaborations
        • Dual careers
      • Funding programmes
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Advanced research
      • Overview Advanced research
      • Good reasons
      • Career options & dual careers
        • Overview Career options & dual careers
        • Professorship
        • Visiting professorship & visiting lectureship
        • Leading a research group
        • Researcher in a company
        • Research stays and visits
        • International collaborations
        • Dual careers
      • Funding & awards
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Research Position
      • Overview Research Position
      • Find a job
      • Potential employers
      • Research fields
        • Overview Research fields
        • Agriculture
        • Architecture
        • Earth Sciences
        • Engineering
        • Forestry
        • Law
        • Logistics
        • Pharmacy
  • Our service
    • Overview Our service
    • Events & online talks
      • Overview Events & online talks
      • Events
      • Online talks
        • Overview Online talks
        • Planning your research career in germany
        • The DAAD PRIME fellowship
        • Meet the Helmholtz Association
        • Learn more about the new Erasmus+ programme for PhD students
        • Interdisciplinary research
        • Global health research
        • Digital learning
        • Meet the German Research Foundation
        • Meet the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
        • Ask a professor
        • Postdoctoral Opportunities in Germany
        • Doctorate Opportunities in Germany
        • The German research landscape
        • Doing research in humanities
        • Women in science
        • Departmental research
        • Online talk: bioeconomy
        • Research opportunities for Indian scholars
        • Universities of Applied Sciences
        • German research clusters
        • Scientific start-ups in Germany
        • Artificial intelligence
        • Online talks for science administrators
        • Future of work
        • How is a research group structured?
        • How to do research in industry
        • Learn from first-hand experience!
        • Funding your research stay
        • Registration Process and Technical Requirements
      • Innovation Week
    • Research news
    • Newsletter
      • Overview Newsletter
      • Subscribe
      • Newsletter 2022
        • Overview Newsletter 2022
        • February 2022
        • June 2022
      • Newsletter 2021
        • Overview Newsletter 2021
        • December 2021
        • October 2021
        • August 2021
        • June 2021
        • April 2021
        • February 2021
    • Our publications
    • Success stories
  1. Home
  2. News & Research Areas
  3. Global Health

Tracking infections digitally

Together with African researchers, a team led by Professor Gerard Krause from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig has developed an IT system that allows epidemics to be identified at an early stage and activities to contain them managed. It was initially created to combat Ebola – and is now being used in many countries around the world to tackle a variety of infectious diseases.

Portrait photo of Professor Gerard Krause

©HZI/Verena Meier

Nobody could have imagined in 2014 that the entire planet would be caught up in a lethal pandemic just a few years later. That said, even in 2014 activities were already underway to combat a particularly dangerous disease: seven years ago, people in Nigeria were contracting the fatal Ebolavirus.  

With the aim of better containing this epidemic, a team at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig developed new software: SORMAS (the acronym stands for Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System) is used to detect epidemics at an early stage and to control the measures put in place to tackle them. “It was our African colleagues who were behind the initiative to jointly develop such a system”, says Gerard Krause, a professor of epidemiology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig. “Mobile phones are used to do so much in Africa, much more even than in Germany.” This is partly because the internet infrastructure in rural regions tends not to be very good. SORMAS was therefore designed to be used on tablets and mobile phones, too.

Three researchers are conversing in a lab.

©HZI/Verena Meier

SORMAS now covers more than 300 million people

SORMAS allows healthcare professionals to record the data of those infected and their contacts even in remote regions and to transmit this data to the central healthcare authorities more or less in real time. However, SORMAS can even be used when there is no mobile phone coverage. Because it is so user-friendly, SORMAS is currently being deployed by more than ten different groups of users, including labs, doctors, health supervisory authorities, epidemiologists and medical personnel at airports – allowing comprehensive monitoring of any infections that may occur. The official measures to contain an epidemic are controlled directly by SORMAS, which is what sets the system apart from many others. Depending on how an epidemic evolves, the authorities can then use SORMAS to rapidly coordinate the measures needed to counter and contain it. For example, SORMAS already proved how valuable it is when three major outbreaks of monkeypox, Lassa fever and meningococcus needed to be tackled simultaneously in Nigeria in 2017.

Soon SORMAS was being used not only in Nigeria but also in numerous other African countries. “More than 300 million people on three continents are now covered by SORMAS”, says Krause. “The system has already registered over 9 million cases of disease, and more than 40,000 healthcare workers have been trained in and actively use SORMAS.”

A globally developed tool that is being deployed globally

While developing the system, Krause and his team worked closely together with researchers from Africa, including the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. “Our collaboration was highly productive – genuine teamwork. This was partly because our colleagues gave us a very clear picture of the needs and problems that healthcare workers have in Africa. Thanks to the great commitment on all sides, we were able to develop SORMAS very quickly and bring it to the point where it was fit for purpose and ready for use.”

According to official data, Nigeria is currently Ebola-free. However, SORMAS is still in place and has become an indispensable tool for epidemiologists in many regions of Africa. And using SORMAS to track the spread of the virus during the Covid-19 pandemic has been a big success for the healthcare authorities in African countries. So big in fact that ten countries from Asia, Europe and the Pacific Region are now using or preparing to use SORMAS. A globally developed tool – that is now being deployed globally.

Get updates! If you want to stay informed, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, YouTube or via RSS and subscribe to our newsletter.

Publisher BMBF Website
Editor DAAD Website
  • Contact us
  • About us
  • Imprint
  • Data protection