Protocol for national influenza sentinel surveillance
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to Member States on establishment of a sentinel influenza system or on integration of sentinel influenza surveillance into an existing framework.
The sentinel surveillance activities described in this document are intended to provide
background rates and trends that will help health-care officials to assess the importance of
unusual events, such as outbreaks, and will provide health-care planners with data that will
help them to understand the contribution that influenza makes to the overall burden of
respiratory disease and to further understand the seasonality phenomenon.
