Journal article
Teacher led school-based surveillance can allow accurate tracking of emerging infectious diseases - evidence from serial cross-sectional surveys of febrile respiratory illness during the H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic in Singapore
SE Soh, AR Cook, MIC Chen, VJ Lee, JL Cutter, VTK Chow, NWS Tee, RTP Lin, WY Lim, IG Barr, C Lin, MC Phoon, LW Ang, SK Sethi, CY Chong, LG Goh, DLM Goh, PA Tambyah, KC Thoon, YS Leo Show all
BMC Infectious Diseases | BMC | Published : 2012
Abstract
Background: Schools are important foci of influenza transmission and potential targets for surveillance and interventions. We compared several school-based influenza monitoring systems with clinic-based influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance, and assessed the variation in illness rates between and within schools.Methods: During the initial wave of pandemic H1N1 (pdmH1N1) infections from June to Sept 2009 in Singapore, we collected data on nation-wide laboratory confirmed cases (Sch-LCC) and daily temperature monitoring (Sch-DTM), and teacher-led febrile respiratory illness reporting in 6 sentinel schools (Sch-FRI). Comparisons were made against age-stratified clinic-based influenza-like i..
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Awarded by Department of Health and Ageing, Australian Government
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Ministry of Education, Singapore and the schools involved for assisting with data collection. We are grateful to Ms Sheila Vaidya from the University of Chicago, USA for her contribution to field work, and Mr Baldev Singh and Mr Muhamad Alif Ibrahim from the Communicable Disease Centre, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore for their help in processing the data and preparing the manuscript for publication. MICC is supported by the National Medical Research Council of Singapore under NMRC/CSA/011/2009, with other project funding from NMRC/H1N1O/002/2009 and NMRC/H1N1R/005/2009. The WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.PAT received research support from Baxter, GSK, Sanofi-Pasteur, ADAMAS and honoraria from Novartis, MSD and Astra-Zeneca unrelated to this study.