TITLE: Serologic surveillance to monitor infection attack rates and severity
of an influenza pandemic in real-time

SPEAKER:  Professor Joseph Wu

ABSTRACT:

Early estimates of transmissibility and severity of an emerging influenza pandemic is an urgent public health priority. This is challenging because many influenza infections are subclinical.
Population-based serologic surveillance allows accurate estimates of infection attack rates (IAR) and severity estimates. During 2009, we tested more than 17,800 serological specimens in Hong Kong throughout the first wave of the H1N1 pandemic. Using these data we estimated
that the basic reproductive number was 1.38 and that 0.6% of infections led to hospitalization. We developed a novel statistical method for real-time serologic surveillance and estimated that about 1,000 specimens per week would allow accurate estimates of IAR and severity as soon as the true IAR has reached 2%. Serologic monitoring should be considered in updated pandemic plans.