1Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Introduction to Group Work 2

Summary of Seasonal Influenza

in the WPR

Virological review

2Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Group Work 2Group D

Grand Ballroom

Anne-Claire GourinatJean Paul Grangeon

Sue HuangVito Roque

Remigio OlvedaJuan Lopez

Nobuhiko OkabePrem Sanjeev Singh

Harpal SinghWilina LimAnn Moen

Emma Denehy

3Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Overall Comments • Many challenges noted which has resulted in the objectives of

the review changing• The time period is too short to determine seasonality, particularly

with the pandemic• Care needs to be taken not misrepresent countries/areas by

being too generalised – countries/areas with small data sets are not being represented (see results

for more information)– Tropics – no distinct seasonality except for a few countries

• Need to create the paper with focus on public health significance (not publication) – at least to stimulate thinking of a regional goal and moving forward

• Start with a WPRO map, define NH, Tropics and SH

4Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Results Section• Consider getting another two year worth of data (2006-

2007) or more, if feasible• Look at each predominate virus separately by type by

zone• Put ILI and laboratory confirmed data on the same

graph• If the purpose is for vaccine recommendation, include

antigenic strains by zones – Discussion could then concentrate on matching circulating

strain with vaccine match – if they don’t match, look into how this can improved in the future.

5Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Results

• Use % of positivity rather than number of positive cases

• Map to show antigenic strains and how they move, year by year in the region

• Include data on antiviral susceptibly, sequence/genetic data, antigenic information, hospital based ARI admissions and mortality

6Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response (ESR)WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO)

Discussion Section• How we can use the data and lessons learnt • Paper is challenging, however there is value is

presenting it as a region (with regional goal/vision of 201X in mind)– Use paper to put forward recommendations for

future data improvements• Perhaps annual NIC reports using a standardized format,

after 5 years it is easy to report on this information• Templates and harmonised case definitions will assist data

collection