Influenza surveillance Netwoks
What is the National Influenza Center of Valladolid?
The National Influenza Center of Valladolid is part of a network that the WHO has throughout the world. In Spain it is complemented by the activity of the existing one in Barcelona and the one in Madrid. There are centers that monitor the circulation of influenza viruses in the population when there is influenza activity and that report or communicate their findings to the viral diseases unit that the WHO has for Europe.
What is the work of the Nacional Influenza Center of Valladolid?
NIC Valladolid has a mixed activity. Through it, monitoring is received from the entire network of sentinel doctors and, consequently, clinical samples to precess in order to identify influenza viruses. Thus, in a complementary way, the Clinician himself provides support, from his virology section, to what is the diagnostic activity in influenza and other respiratory viruses in different hospitals in our Community.
What does the Valladolid Natinal Influenza Center investigate?
The research work arises from the care activity itself.
Our group has an applied research activity and is configured in three main lines.
-Biologically, genetically and serologically characterize the viruses.
-Monitor the immune response of the human being against the vaccines that are applied.
-Carries out unique studies in the country on serological archeology to delimit the imprint that the first infections of influenza viruses make in people.
With the Covid 19 emergency, the WHO, through the surveillance network, understands that the Influenza centers are an excellent instrument to test diagnostic methods.
When a patient goes to the doctor requesting attention, what he manifests is a series of symptoms and clinical signs that date from the history or that the doctor can objectify, but the etiological identification, the specificity of the diagnosis is given by microbiologists who can make an etiological diagnosis; in this sense, we, as a Influenza Center, are interested, not in other respiratory viruses, but in any pathogen that can affect the respiratory tree, whatever its origin.
Participants of
Currently in the ScVGE participate:
– 16 networks of sentinel physicians and paediatricians, one in each Region (Aragón, Galicia and Murcia do not have sentinel influenza surveillance networks) and the two Autonomous Cities, are coordinated at the national level by the National Epidemiology Center (CNE).
– 18 laboratories with the capacity to detect and isolate influenza viruses. Three of them are WHO National Influenza Centers (National Microbiology Center of Carlos III Health Institute, Hospital Clínico de Barcelona and the WHO National Influenza Center of the University of Valladolid). The set of these 18 Autonomous Reference Laboratories make up the Network of Influenza Laboratories in Spain (ReLEG) coordinated by the National Center for Microbiology (CNM).
– Administrative units and public health institutes, coordinators of the regional sentinel surveillance networks.
in 1996 the European Influenza Surveillance System was created, the network that became coordinated by the European Center for Disease Control (European
Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC]) in 2008 as the European Influenza Surveillance Network (EISN).
Currently, the EISN brings together 36 laboratories integrated into the European Reference Laboratory Network for Human Influenza (European Reference Laboratory Network for Human Influenza [ERLI-Net]), practically all of them being WHO national influenza centers (NIC’s).
Influenza surveillance by
The GISRS includes 141 National Influenza Centers (NIC’s) located in 110 countries whose mission is to isolate and characterize influenza viruses circulating in their geographic area. These viruses are then compared with each other at five WHO Collaborating Centers for Influenza Research and Reference (WHO Collaborating Centers (WHO CC) around the world (London, Melbourne, Beijing, Tokyo and Atlanta) to detect new variants and select those that should be included in the following season’s vaccine.
Through the influenza Surveillance Program, WHO collects and analyzes epidemiological and virological data from differente countries, areas and territories of the world, based on their voluntary participation to share their influenza surveillance data. The declaration by the countries of the virological and epidemiological data, as well as the access to the information generated, is done through the internet thourgh a system called FluNet coordinated by the WHO.