Influenza surveillance in children: first experiences with the Belgian Paediatric Surveillance system 'PediSurv'

Abstract

Early in the influenza A(H1N1)2009 pandemic, children < 5 years were considered to be at increased risk of contracting the disease and developing complications [1,2]. With the start of the mitigation phase, surveillance had to be enhanced to support decision making and several surveillance systems were reinforced, adapted or set up. The paediatric outpatient population was thought to be insufficiently covered by the Sentinel General Practitioners (SGP) network for children < 5 years [3] and the consultation behaviour of young children's parents could not be predicted during the pandemic. Therefore surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI) in outpatient children was launched by extending the surveillance scope of the already existing Paediatric Surveillance Network (PediSurv). This network consists of about 440 voluntary participating paediatricians and about 350 GPs in Brussels. It was set up as part of the epidemiological surveillance of communicable diseases in Europe and in the framework of polio eradication and measles elimination [4,5]. Currently, PediSurv monitors the occurrence of acute flaccid paralysis, measles, mumps, Invasive Pneumococcal Disease (IPD), congenital rubella and haemolytic uremic syndrome. Although PediSurv is not an exhaustive surveillance system and calculation of incidence is not possible for all diseases, the stable participation rate allowed to observe trends and to detect clusters and outbreaks [6,7]. This article describes how we introduced clinical and virological surveillance activities of in-fluenza within this surveillance system and presents the results from week 39 until week 53 of 2009.