The history of OASIS

The OASIS application was developed by multiple teams in several stages over a twenty-year period.

In the early 2000s, a group of epidemiologists (Pascal Hendrikx, Cécile Squarzoni, Guillaume Gerbier, Antoine Maillard, Sophie Molia) set out to develop a questionnaire that could be used in most epidemiological surveillance situations. Specifically, they sought to design a tool that could be used regardless of the surveillance network’s level (local, regional or national), orientation (focused on one risk or oriented towards a group of risks), or structure (standalone or integrated).

This led to the development of a first tool (named SNAT, for Surveillance Network Assessment Tool), in Word and Excel formats, as well as a web interface, as part of a regional epidemiological surveillance project (Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Maghreb).

This tool was updated and revised in December 2007 by the CaribVET (Caribbean) group of epidemiologists: Pascal Hendrikx, Thierry Lefrançois, Sylvie Ahoussou, Nicolas Ehrhardt, Luis Gomez, Maria Irian Percedo Abreu, Brian Sanford, Kathian Herbert-Hackshaw, Siméon Phanord, Miguel De Paz, Loïc Gouyet and Juan-Francisco Lopez Hernandez.

Between December 2009 and May 2010, this work was then resumed, under the name OASIS, by an AFSSA working group: Pascal Hendrikx, Barbara Dufour, Emilie Gay, Myria Chazel, François Moutou, Céline Richomme, Frank Boué, Rozenn Souillard, Corinne Danan and Françoise Gauchard.

OASIS subsequently developed further assessment tools, such as SNAT-TROP in Southeast Asia and the FAO Surveillance Evaluation Tool (SET).

In 2021, thanks to funding from the French Embassy in Zimbabwe, the OASIS tool was transformed into a web application that is supported by online training. The main contributors to this work were:

  • scientists and educators from ANSES, CIRAD and EnvA (Jean-Philippe Amat, Pauline Bres, Diane Cuzzucoli, Céline Dupuy, Aurélien Flon-Rebours, Viviane Hénaux, Pascal Hendrikx, Ismaël Houillon, Renaud Lailler, Anne Quillevéré, Virginie Ravigne and Julie Rivière)
  • CIRAD's MUSC platform (David Chavernac, Youenn Leborgne and Géraldine Laveissiere)
  • Choosit, a digital solutions agency based in Montpellier www.choosit.com
  • Agnès Seye, a consultant in Montpellier www.formation-seye.fr .