Plans for Nationwide Serosurveillance Network in Vietnam

Abstract

In recent years, serosurveillance has gained momentum as a way of determining disease transmission and immunity in populations, particularly with respect to vaccine-preventable diseases. At the end of 2017, the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology held a meeting in Vietnam with national policy makers, researchers, and international experts to discuss current seroepidemiologic projects in Vietnam and future needs and plans for nationwide serosurveillance. This report summarizes the meeting and the plans that were discussed to set up nationwide serosurveillance in Vietnam.

Serology as a Tool to Assess Infectious Disease Landscapes and Guide Public Health Policy

“…The idea of using serology-based methods to measure the presence of pathogen-specific antibodies in populations of interest and define the level of exposure and infectious disease landscape is rapidly gaining traction [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. It is increasingly seen as a powerful tool that could complement classical case-based disease surveillance, generate a wealth of information and help guide public health policy.…”

“…Performing bespoke sero-surveillance studies, where a population is screened for the presence of antibodies of interest, is often time-, labor- and cost-intensive [ 19 ]. Thankfully, antibodies can be detected in serum, DBS and saliva using only a small volume of fresh or frozen sample, and therefore serology can be performed on convenience samples, such as residual serum from hospital laboratories [ 37 ], blood banks [ 38 , 39 ] and historical collections [ 23 , 40 ].…”

“…In these cases, proper sample preservation is crucial to guaranteeing scientific validity of the results, and a rigorous ethical framework must be in place to ensure that consent for further testing of the samples has been received [ 20 ]. As illustrated in Vietnam, a hybrid sample collection approach combining the expansion of existing studies with convenience sampling can also be adopted to balance biases inherent to each collection technique [ 19 ].…”

Building an integrated serosurveillance platform to inform public health interventions: Insights from an experts’ meeting on serum biomarkers

“…Country ownership based on locally accepted practices and public health priorities should be the foundation of the design and implementation of the serosurveys, while biomarkers for specific pathogens and use-cases would need to be validated at the regional or international levels. Based on experiences from countries in implementing the initial integrated serosurveillance systems (for example, pilot projects in Cambodia [ 19 ], Kenya [ 20 ], Nigeria [ 21 ], and Vietnam [ 22 ]), generic models could be created that countries could adapt to their national priorities and needs. This could include standard guidelines, operating procedures, training modules, as well as a network of technicians in LMICs that could fix and calibrate multiplex machines when needed, and would create a global avenue for interplatform collaboration and exchange of experiences and practices ( Box 1 ).…”