Outbreak detection and evaluation of a school-based influenza-like-illness syndromic surveillance in Tianjin, China

School-based influenza-like-illness (ILI) syndromic surveillance can be an important part of influenza community surveillance by providing early warnings for outbreaks and leading to a fast response. From September 2012 to December 2014, syndromic surveillance of ILI was carried out in 4 county-level schools. The cumulative sum methods(CUSUM) was used to detect abnormal signals. A susceptible-exposed-infectious/asymptomatic-recovered (SEIAR) model was fit to the influenza outbreak without control measures and compared with the actual influenza outbreak to evaluate the effectiveness of early control efforts. The ILI incidence rates in 2014 (14.51%) was higher than the incidence in 2013 (5.27%) and 2012 (3.59%). Ten school influenza outbreaks were detected by CUSUM. Each outbreak had high transmissibility with a median Runc of 4.62. The interventions in each outbreak had high effectiveness and all Rcon were 0. The early intervention had high effectiveness within the school-based ILI syndromic surveillance. Syndromic surveillance within schools can play an important role in controlling influenza outbreaks.