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Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

Shiloh

Shiloh

Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=158&ContentID=70609

Doctors using Internet to track flu

30th April 2008, 12:00 WST

Flu specialists are going to new lengths to track outbreaks of the dreaded lurgy this season following last winter?s deadly epidemic.

The online project will quickly alert medical officials to outbreaks as they happen, identify what strains are circulating and whether the flu vaccine is working effectively.

The tool, developed by the University of Newcastle, will rely on weekly reports from about 2000 vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians who volunteer to fill out an internet questionnaire detailing their physical health.

The results will be regularly collated to give an immediate picture of flu impact from early May to late October.

?Participants are asked to spend a very short time each week filling out an online survey on whether they have a fever, cough, or are having time off work due to flu-like symptoms,? said lead researcher, public health physician Dr Craig Dalton.

?The project will help us to work out where and when an outbreak of flu has occurred, the severity of the flu strain and whether the influenza strains have changed.?

The project, called Flutracking.net, ran as a pilot study last winter, the worst flu season since 2003. Six children died in three states after catching one of the two virulent influenza A strains circulating most widely.

?The 2007 influenza season was a particularly severe one,? Dr Dalton said.

?There was concern early in the season that the influenza vaccine may not be as effective as expected but Flutracking.net showed quite marked differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated participants, with much lower rates in vaccinated participants.?

Australians nationwide with regular access to email and the internet are encouraged to sign up.

Meanwhile, very few flu incidents have been reported so far this season, with specialists still hopeful the severe season will alternate with a more mild one, as shown by historic patterns.

SYDNEY
AAP
 
Re: AU: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

Re: AU: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

"... will rely on weekly reports from about 2000 vaccinated and unvaccinated Australians who volunteer to fill out an internet questionnaire detailing their physical health."

Good starting point (weekly reports), but it's not understandeable why those Internet summing report was not based on e-mails with an filled weekly GP report of their illnessed patients (from all the country GP's), instead of volunteers (the epidem. country report, but weekly, not after the flu season, 3months).
 
Re: Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

Hello, I am a researcher on the Flutracking.net project. In answer to the question raised by Tropical above - we have trialled influenza syndromic surveillance with general practitioners in our own regional health area, however, it has not proven to be very effective. None of the current general practitioner based influenza surveillance systems record the influenza vaccine status of the patient which is a critical piece of the data that supports our analysis in trying to decide if cough, fever and absence from work is due to influenza or not.

Additionally, the response from general practitioners was slow and not always complete. Flutracking has an advantage in that not all cases of influenza go to a GP, so we may pick up more cases and perhaps earlier than waiting for people to present to a GP and then be notified. Thanks for the interest in our project.

For more information on the project please go to www.flutracking.net/info
 
Re: Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

tropical, this is done in many countries and published at flunet.
Some selected physicians report ILI-cases and maps based on it
are being updated.

Craig, yes, I've always been wondering why the vaccine-status of ILI-patients
isn't being statistically recorded. Only in some studies they have it,
but not in the general flunet-data.

These Australian data, are they kept secret or can we all follow and
analyze it ? This could be useful for other countries too.

I don't like .pdf - files, they can't be quoted, analyzed, are not computer-readable,
they are long and require launching of Acrobat and sometimes they cause
computer-crashes.

The selected group could be biased towards internet users, I assume those have fewer
contacts with other people and are less likely to catch the flu ?!?

There is also whoissick.org , but they have not so many participants.


Tracking for Oseltamivir-resistance will be interesting this season !
When will these new flu-detection-chips be available in Australia ?


a prediction market for Australia would be interesting, like these:
http://fluprediction.uiowa.edu/fluhome/Market_IaFluActivity.html
 
Re: Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

"this is done in many countries and published at flunet"

Hi gsgs,
my understanding (maybe I'm wrong) was that those published data are collected during the 2-3 months period of seasonal flu, and processed/published after the seasonal vawe ending.

The new intention was to collect real time data during the flu event, from 2-3 weeks collecting periods from the begining, and further, by processing and publishing every few weeks during the illness.
This way, if the illness raised sharply in the few weeks period, maybe something new is going on.
___

Hi Craig,
cong. for the tryings.

I know that the burocracy questions are elevate, but for countries where the med records are inserted and stored by computers, this sentence must changed:
"None of the current general practitioner based influenza surveillance systems record the influenza vaccine status of the patient which is a critical piece of the data that supports our analysis in trying to decide if cough, fever and absence from work is due to influenza or not."

It must be very easy to wrote a directive by the country health estab to the GP's that they must insert/digit a vaccine status data.

If the GP's objects that the medprog don't support that, than it can be inserted an additional prog that sends automaticaly from all the GP's machines the patients vaccination data to a collecting point by network/internet.

Than it can be compared the GP's datagram, and the selfreporting by fluctracking, in real time.
 
Re: Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

data often come in with only a few weeks delay.
You can watch the updates, given by week

latest data:
Cameroon,week 19,2008,6 specimens tested

actually only few data from week 19, but for week 18, e.g.:

Week 18 from 04/28/2008 to 05/04/2008 , China:
A(H1) : 9
A(H3) : 28
A(not suptyped) : 1
B : 19
 
Re: Australia: Doctors using Internet to track (seasonal) flu

gsgs said:
flunet:

http://gamapserver.who.int/GlobalAtlas/DataQuery/home.asp

click:

influenza
Select/Deselect All
Add to Selected Indicators
Go (in left window)
All Countries
>>
view data


nothing for Australia from this year yet.


Australian influenza reports:

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/Publishing.nsf/Content/cda-surveil-ozflu-flucurr.htm
Click to expand...

Like you said:
"nothing for Australia from this year yet."
described the celerity of public reports about, and they are more diluted than the 2 weeks window.

There are many countries which public reports are more than 3 months after. The final cut are after the illness.

A. produced a detailed strain processed oficial publication only month(s) after the very suspected last year cases of one-day bad flu cases.

Also, I presumpted that Craig, if a person on the field who knows better than us the field situation when filling data in their regional trial:
"we have trialled influenza syndromic surveillance with general practitioners in our own regional health area"
and I presumpted as true his assertions that:
"None of the current general practitioner based influenza surveillance systems record the influenza vaccine status of the patient
... supports our analysis in trying to decide if cough, fever and absence from work is due to influenza or not"

It would be better to unify, and change such behaviour (where it is possible) by gov/health directives of bi-weekly data collecting, and publication, if we wan't to change the early awareness response time.
 
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