Krafft Thomas

Surveillance of severe influenza infections is lacking in the Netherlands. Ambulance dispatch (AD) data may provide information about severity of the influenza epidemic and its burden on emergency services. The current gold standard, primary care-based surveillance of influenza-like-illness (ILI), mainly captures mild to moderate influenza cases, and does not provide adequate information on severe disease. Monitoring the severity of the annual epidemic, particularly among groups most at risk of complications, is of importance for the planning of health services and the public health response.

Objective: We aim to assess whether influenza circulation, as measured through influenza-like-illness (ILI) in primary care, is reflected in ambulance dispatch (AD) calls.

Triple-S (Syndromic Surveillance Survey, Assessment towards Guidelines for Europe) was launched in 2010 for a 3-year period. Co-financed by the European Commission through the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers, the project is coordinated by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance and involves 24 organisations from 13 countries. Both human and veterinary syndromic surveillance are considered.

Objective

The first results of the inventory of syndromic surveillance systems in Europe, conducted in the framework of the European project Triple-S, are presented.

Co-financed by the European Commission through the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers, the European Triple-S project (Syndromic Surveillance Survey, Assessment towards Guidelines for Europe) was launched in 2010 for a 3-year period and includes 24 organizations in 13 countries. Numerous European countries have created SyS systems. These systems analyze and report their SyS findings to local, regional or national public-health authorities in accordance with their national priorities. But the country outputs are not systematically reported and compared at the EU level, hindering a global overview and interpretation of the health situations observed in different regions or countries in Europe. The Triple-S project has thus proposed a strategy for coordinating the comparison and interpretation of SyS information across Europe to produce a Europe-wide epidemiological picture of a given health event in a timely manner, and thereby support coordinated public-health action.

Objective

To present a proposal for coordinating syndromic surveillance (SyS) systems operated by European countries and for comparing findings from these systems.