The Global Influenza Hospital Surveillance Network is a platform that collects standardized data from hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory illnesses across countries, including low-, middle-, and high-income countries from both hemispheres.
All GIHSN investigating sites are not-for-profit institutions, with experience in hospital-based surveillance for influenza and other respiratory viruses. Some of them are involved in the national surveillance in their country; some are National Influenza Centers (NICs). Data is collected at hospital level, with one to several hospitals being included in the surveillance.
Surveillance population and settings by site can vary significantly from one site to another, depending notably on the number and type of hospitals involved, site case finding approach, laboratory and WGS capacities, site experience in influenza surveillance and within the GIHSN.
Range of viruses tested beyond influenza can also vary from one site to another. Although influenza virus surveillance is a key priority for the GIHSN, the network indeed encourages sites to include other respiratory viruses as part of their surveillance, if laboratory capacity exists locally.
These specificities by site must be carefully considered when analysing the data. Characteristics and features of each site are collected in a dedicated form and consolidated in a table, which is available on the GIHSN website.
If you have an interest for a deeper analysis on the network’s data for research projects, please contact us on contact@gihsn.org. It will be analyzed by the network’s independent scientific committee.