Syndromic surveillance performance in Canada throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, March 1, 2020 to March 4, 2023

Myriam Ben Moussa; Abbas Rahal; Liza Lee; Shamir Mukhi

doi:10.14745/ccdr.v49i1112a06

Syndromic surveillance performance in Canada throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, March 1, 2020 to March 4, 2023

Can Commun Dis Rep. 2023 Nov 1;49(11-12):501-509. doi: 10.14745/ccdr.v49i1112a06.

Authors

Myriam Ben Moussa¹, Abbas Rahal¹, Liza Lee¹, Shamir Mukhi²

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Emerging and Respiratory Infections and Pandemic Preparedness, Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, ON.
² Canadian Network for Public Health Intelligence, National Microbiology Laboratory, Edmonton, AB.

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the need for robust surveillance of respiratory viruses. Syndromic surveillance continues to be an important surveillance component recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). While FluWatchers, Canada's syndromic surveillance system, has been in place since 2015, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a valuable opportunity to expand the program's scope and underlying technology infrastructure. Following some structural changes to FluWatchers syndromic questionnaire, participants are now able to contribute valuable data to the non-specific surveillance of respiratory virus activity across Canada. This article examines the performance of FluWatchers' syndromic surveillance over the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. More specifically, this article examines FluWatchers' performance with respect to the correlation between the FluWatchers influenza-like illness (ILI) and acute respiratory infection (ARI) indicators and total respiratory virus detections (RVDs) in Canada, including influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and other respiratory viruses.

Keywords: influenza; participatory surveillance; respiratory viruses; syndromic surveillance.