PURPOSE To develop the infrastructure to conduct timely active surveillance for safety of influenza vaccines and other medical countermeasures in the Sentinel System (formerly the Mini-Sentinel Pilot), a Food and Drug Administration-sponsored national surveillance system that typically relies on data that are mature, settled, and updated quarterly. METHODS Three Data Partners provided their e...

This paper presents a description of Peru s experience with pandemic H1N1 influenza 2009. It is based on data from four main surveillance systems: a) ongoing sentinel surveillance of influenza-like illness cases with virological surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses; b) sentinel surveillance of severe acute respiratory infections and associated deaths; c) surveillance of acute...

We aimed to estimate influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed influenza during three influenza seasons (2010/11 to 2012/2013) in Spain using surveillance data and to compare the results with data obtained by the cycEVA study, the Spanish component of the Influenza Monitoring Vaccine Effectiveness (I-MOVE) network. We used the test-negative case–control design, with data...

BACKGROUND Although influenza surveillance has recently been improved in some sub-Saharan African countries, no information is yet available from Burkina Faso. OBJECTIVES Our study was the first to determine the prevalence of influenza viruses circulating in Burkina Faso through a sentinel surveillance system. METHODS We conducted sentinel surveillance with oropharyngeal (OP) swabs collecte...

Recent developments of grid services for secured distributed data management open new perspectives for disease surveillance. In this paper, we report on our initiative to develop a surveillance network for breast cancer in the Auvergne region. The network gathers cytopathology laboratories, structures in charge of cancer screening and institutes in charge of cancer epidemiology. Data stored in ...

BACKGROUND Acute respiratory illnesses and influenza-like illnesses (ILI) are a significant source of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the public health importance, little is known about the etiology of these acute respiratory illnesses in many regions of South America. In 2006, the Peruvian Ministry of Health (MoH) and the US Naval Medical Research Center Detachment (NMRCD) initiated...

BACKGROUND Limited data are available from Central and Eastern Europe on risk factors for severe complications of influenza. Such data are essential to prioritize prevention and treatment resources and to adapt influenza vaccination recommendations. OBJECTIVES To use sentinel surveillance data to identify risk factors for fatal outcomes among hospitalized patients with severe acute respirator...

BACKGROUND Many countries in Africa have lacked sentinel surveillance systems for influenza and are under-represented in data used for global vaccine strain selection. OBJECTIVES We describe 8 years of sentinel surveillance data and the contribution of influenza and other viruses to medically attended influenza-like illness (ILI) in Côte d'Ivoire. METHODS Sentinel surveillance was establish...

Outbreaks of enterovirus 71 have been reported around the world since 1969. The most recent outbreak occurred in Taiwan during April-July 1998. This hand, foot, and mouth disease epidemic was detected by a sentinel surveillance system in April at the beginning of the outbreak, and the public was alerted.