• Ghobad Moradi, Heshmatollah Asadi, Mohammad-Mehdi Gouya, Mahmood Nabavi, Abbas Norouzinejad, Mohammad Karimi, and Amjad Mohamadi-Bolbanabad.
• Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2019 Jul 1; 22 (7): 361-368.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to determine the challenges and opportunities of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance System (CDSS) in Iran.MethodsThis qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) with 64 participants from October 2016 to April 2017. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit participants. The collected data were analyzed via the content analysis method. Data analysis was performed using MAXQDA10 software.ResultsThe results of this qualitative study were categorized in two parts: Challenges and opportunities. The CDSS is facing challenges in the fields of stewardship, reporting, information analysis, information, interventions, and education. Good infrastructures and structure, the technical support provided by the Centre for Communicable Disease Control (CCDC), the achievements of the CDSS, and the suitable electronic systems are among the opportunities of CDSS.ConclusionThe results of this study showed that CDSS has several major challenges. Authorities and policymakers must not ignore communicable diseases and their management tools, including CDSS because of their focus on non-communicable diseases. Some important strategies to overcome the challenges of CDSS can be the following: motivating policy makers to put emphasis on communicable diseases as a national security issue, the ratification and modification of laws and regulations on reporting, the involvement of the CDSS in the accreditation of hospitals and the renewal of the license for healthcare professionals, and motivating organizations outside the health sector to participate in the programs through inter-institutional agreements.© 2019 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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