The health of influenza surveillance and pandemic preparedness in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first to have emerged when Next Generation Sequencing was readily available and it has played the major role in following evolution of the causative agent, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. Response to the pandemic was greatly facilitated though use of existing influenza surveillance networks: World Health Organization (WHO) Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), focussing largely on human influenza, and the OFFLU network of expertise on avian influenza established by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). Data collection/deposition platforms associated with these networks, notably WHO’s FluNet and the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) were/are being used intensely. Measures introduced to combat COVID-19 resulted in greatly decreased circulation of human seasonal influenza viruses for approximately 2 years, but circulation continued in the animal sector with an upsurge in the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza subtype H5N1 with large numbers of wild bird deaths, culling of many poultry flocks and sporadic spill over into mammalian species, including humans, thereby increasing pandemic risk potential. While there are proposals/implementations to extend use of GISRS and GISAID to other infectious disease agents (e.g. Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Monkeypox), there is need to ensure that influenza surveillance is maintained and improved in both human and animal sectors in a sustainable manner to be truly prepared (early detection) for the next influenza pandemic.

Assessing the Intense Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 Epidemic and Vaccine Effectiveness in the Post-COVID Season in the Russian Federation

“…The WHO GISRS and its partners are continually working to identify improvements and harness new technologies to strengthen and sustain collaboration. WHO will continue to play the central role of coordinating worldwide expertise to meet the increasing public health need for influenza vaccines and support efforts to improve the vaccine virus selection methodology, including through the convening of periodic international consultations [ 30 ]. The recent epidemic in Russia highlights the importance of global surveillance to understand the specific etiology and spread of influenza viruses in different countries.…”

RNA barcode segments for SARS-CoV-2 identification from HCoVs and SARSr-CoV-2 lineages

“…Furthermore, test set3-3 and test set3-4 showed that all main and subordinate barcode segments yielded “No significant results found” in the high similarity identification against Monkeypox, Influenza, Poxviridae family viruses, and other viruses within Coronaviridae. This suggested that the species-specific barcode segments of SARS-CoV-2 remain unaffected by the presence of these viruses, ensuring accurate identification even during the prevalence of influenza and monkeypox diseases in 2023 ( Daniels and McCauley, 2023 ; Peng et al., 2023 ).…”

“…Test sets 1−3 were specifically designed to complement previous studies on barcode segments ( Guan et al., 2020 ) and assessed the performance of the barcode segments in identifying new variants of SARS-CoV-2 resulting from recombination events, genetically related strains to SARS-CoV-2, and authoritative virus databases. Test set 3 specifically targeted the highly prominent pathogens in current domestic and international epidemics, including monkeypox and influenza ( Daniels and McCauley, 2023 ; Peng et al., 2023 ), to evaluate the performance of the barcode segments. By combining the validation of accuracy presented in Tables 2 and it became evident that the potential recombination events ( Tiecco et al., 2022 ; Markov et al., 2023 ) between the aforementioned strains and SARS-CoV-2 had a minimal impact on the identification capability of the barcode segments ( Table 4 ).…”

Viruela símica: ¿un peligro para la salud pública mundial?

“…Fortunately, some measures taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the use of facemasks and personal protective equipment, help to reduce the risk of contracting viral infections, including MPXV, in the general population and healthcare personnel. 9 Given the current context of pandemic threats, mpox should not be overlooked, and this is why public health is so important. The mechanisms for monitoring and epidemiological surveillance of confirmed cases are now quite modern and, together with the use of effective biosecurity can be very useful in stopping the transmission of MPXV.…”