Evaluation of two influenza surveillance systems in South Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The World Health Organisation recommends outpatient influenza-like illness (ILI) and inpatient severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) surveillance. We evaluated two influenza surveillance systems in South Africa: one for ILI and another for SARI.

Methodology

The Viral Watch (VW) programme has collected virological influenza surveillance data voluntarily from patients with ILI since 1984 in private and public clinics in all 9 South African provinces. The SARI surveillance programme has collected epidemiological and virological influenza surveillance data since 2009 in public hospitals in 4 provinces by dedicated personnel. We compared nine surveillance system attributes from 2009-2012.

Results

We analysed data from 18,293 SARI patients and 9,104 ILI patient

SUBMITTER: Budgell E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4379032 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature