Improved capacity for influenza surveillance in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region: Progress in a challenging setting.

Background: The World Health Organization Regional Office for Eastern Mediterranean has partnered with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to strengthen pandemic influenza preparedness and response in the Region since 2006. This partnership focuses on pandemic preparedness planning, establishing and enhancing influenza surveillance systems, improving laboratory capacity for detection of influenza viruses, estimating the influenza disease burden, and providing evidence to support policies for the introduction and increased use of seasonal influenza vaccines.

Methods: Various published and unpublished data from public and WHO sources, programme indicators of the CDC cooperative agreement and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework were reviewed and analysed.

Household-based sero-epidemiologic survey after a yellow fever epidemic, Sudan, 2005.

From September through early December 2005, an outbreak of yellow fever (YF) occurred in South Kordofan, Sudan, resulting in a mass YF vaccination campaign. In late December 2005, we conducted a serosurvey to assess YF vaccine coverage and to better define the epidemiology of the outbreak in an index village. Of 552 persons enrolled, 95% reported recent YF vaccination, and 25% reported febrile illness during the outbreak period: 13% reported YF-like illness, 4% reported severe YF-like illness, and 12% reported chikungunya-like illness.