News portal of the government of the Canary Islands

It is an annual gathering that provides a space for professionals and experts to analyze and debate to share knowledge and experience.

The Director General of the Canary Health Service (SCS), Rita Tristancio, opened this morning, October 4, the III Strategic Conference on the Surveillance of Acute Respiratory Infections in the Canary Islands, held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

This annual meeting, organized by the Epidemiological Surveillance and Prevention Unit of the General Directorate of Public Health SCS of the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, aims to provide a space for professionals to discuss in which information can be shared. experience and analyze new approaches to surveillance and prevention of acute respiratory infections (ARI).

In this new edition, the conference consisted of three thematic blocks consisting of various presentations that covered topics such as vaccination, control and outbreak control of this type of pathology.

The epicenter of the meeting was the acute respiratory infection surveillance programs on the islands, including the implementation of ARI surveillance at two sentinel sites: the Guanarteme Medical Center in Gran Canaria and San Benito in Tenerife.

Surveillance of acute respiratory infections in the Canary Islands

Following recommendations from the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), international surveillance systems have refocused their goals and resources on comprehensive surveillance of mild to severe acute respiratory infections (ARIs). and those that require hospitalization and have a different notification scheme (SARI).

The goal is to monitor the development of these pathologies in primary and hospital care, identifying unexpected patterns that may serve as warning signs, and to monitor epidemics of influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in accordance with European guidelines ECDC and WHO.

The system can describe the epidemiological and microbiological characteristics of these respiratory agents and help evaluate the effectiveness of control and prevention measures, especially vaccines.