Global surveillance for COVID-19 caused by human infection with COVID-19 virus

This document summarises current WHO guidance on global surveillance for COVID-19 in humans, caused by infection with COVID-19 virus. This guidance should be read in conjunction with WHO’s guidance on preparedness, readiness and response activities, which strongly recommends active case finding and testing as well as contact tracing in all transmission scenarios. Aggregate reporting should be considered a temporary stop-gap measure only when individual case reporting is not possible. WHO will continue to update this guidance as new information about COVID-19 becomes available. Updated information and other guidance on COVID-19 can be found on the WHO COVID-19 website.

What is new:
• Updated case definition for a probable case
• Definition of transmission pattern
• Revision of the definition of a contact
• Update on global surveillance with aggregated data reporting