Studies Needed to Address Public Health Challenges of the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic:
Insights from Modeling

Maria D. Van Kerkhove1*, Tommi Asikainen2, Niels G. Becker3, Steven Bjorge4, Jean-Claude Desenclos5, Thais dos Santos4, Christophe Fraser1, Gabriel M. Leung6, Marc Lipsitch7, Ira M. Longini, Jr.8,9, Emma S. McBryde10, Cathy E. Roth4, David K. Shay11, Derek J. Smith12,13,14, Jacco Wallinga15,16, Peter J. White1,17, Neil M. Ferguson1, Steven Riley18
PLoS Med 7(6): e1000275. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000275 – June 2010

Available online at: http://bit.ly/aiPbox

“……The emergence and global spread of a novel strain of human influenza A/H1N1 during 2009 (pandemic [H1N1] 2009 influenza, or H1N1pdm) has highlighted the importance of data from both detailed outbreak investigations and population surveillance for the support of public health decision making.

For example, public health organizations in several countries undertook detailed case investigations to build databases of the first few hundred cases, which include laboratory confirmation status, age, relative severity, exposure history, onset of symptoms, and contact history (for example, the UK First Few Hundred project [1]).

Descriptive analyses of such data allowed decision-makers to conclude rapidly that the disease caused by the novel strain was relatively mild for the

majority of confirmed cases and that it was being transmitted efficiently between children…”

WHO Informal Network for Mathematical Modelling for Pandemic Influenza H1N1 2009 (Working Group on Data Needs)

1 MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 2 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 3 National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 4 World Health Organization, 5 Institut de Veille Sanitaire, Saint Maurice, France, 6 Food and Health Bureau, Government of Hong Kong SAR, Hong Kong SAR, 7 Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics and Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 8 Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Disease (CSQUID), Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Institute, Hutchinson Research Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 9 Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, School of Public Health, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 10 Victorian Infectious Diseases Service, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 Influenza Division, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, 12 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 13 Erasmus Medical Center, Department of Virology, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 14 Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America, 15 National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Centre for Infectious Disease Control, Bilthoven, The Netherlands, 16 University Medical Center Utrecht, Division Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 17 Modelling and Economics Unit, Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections, London, United Kingdom, 18 School of Public Health and Department of Community Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information related to Influenza. Materials in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PAHO/WHO Website: http:www.paho.org

Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/archives/influenza.html