BACKGROUND Following the outbreak of chikungunya in the Indian Ocean, the Ministry of Health directed the necessary development of an early outbreak detection system. A disease surveillance team including the Institut Pasteur in Madagascar (IPM) was organized to establish a sentinel syndromic-based surveillance system. The system, which was set up in March 2007, transmits patient data on a dail...

Because sentinel surveillance systems cannot obtain information about patients who visit non-sentinel medical facilities, the characteristics of patients identified by these systems may be biased. In this study, we evaluated the representativeness of a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) surveillance system using health insurance claim (HIC) data, which does not depend on physici...

To provide an early estimate of 2011/12 influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE), we conducted a multicentre case-control study based on seven sentinel surveillance networks. We included influenza-like illness cases up to week 7/2012 from the vaccination target groups, swabbed less than eight days after symptom onset. Laboratory-confirmed influenza A(H3) cases were compared to negative controls. Ad...

OBJECTIVES To estimate, using Bayesian evidence synthesis, the age-group-specific annual incidence of symptomatic infection with seasonal influenza in the Netherlands over the period 2005-2007. METHODS The Netherlands population and age group distribution for 2006 defined the base population. The number of influenza-like illness (ILI) cases was estimated from sentinel surveillance data and ad...

Between 18 May 2009 and 3 May 2010, a total of 149 fatal cases associated with pandemic influenza A (H1N1) were reported in Greece. Detailed case-based epidemiological information was available for the large majority of fatal cases. The time distribution follows an epidemic curve with a peak in the beginning of December 2009 and a second peak one month later. This is similar to that of laborato...

Results Initially, medical officers from multiple types of government hospitals in India were expected to report AIDS cases, including deaths. However, this reporting mechanism was inadequate, complicated by many disparate types of reporting units with incomplete and delayed reports. Therefore AIDS case reporting has been replaced by HIV case reporting from the 4532 Integrated Counseling and Te...

Urban food insecurity has become a growing humanitarian problem in most developing countries due to population increase, rural-urban migration, widespread poverty and increasing cost of food. In Kenya, an estimated 12 million people live in urban areas of which 5.7 million (about 48%) reside in slums or informal settlements. The slums are particularly at high risk of vulnerability to food insec...

BACKGROUND The sentinel surveillance system in Japan provides estimates of nationwide influenza incidence. Although prefectural influenza incidences can be estimated using data from the current surveillance system, such estimates may be imprecise. METHODS We calculated the numbers of sentinel medical institutions (SMIs) needed in the surveillance system to estimate influenza incidences in pre...

Understanding the characteristics of available influenza or influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance systems is important for seasonal influenza surveillance and pandemic preparedness. We compared five influenza or ILI data sources in Victoria: notifications of laboratory-confirmed influenza to the Victorian Department of Human Services; hospital emergency presentations and hospital admissions...