Digitalizing and Upgrading Severe Acute Respiratory Infections Surveillance in Malta: System Development.

Background: In late 2020, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and Epiconcept started implementing a surveillance system for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) across Europe.

Objective: We sought to describe the process of digitizing and upgrading SARI surveillance in Malta, an island country with a centralized health system, during the COVID-19 pandemic from February to November 2021. We described the characteristics of people included in the surveillance system and compared different SARI case definitions, including their advantages and disadvantages.