Key Findings
- The Australian Government and state and territory governments worked well together to ensure that a national surveillance picture was available to inform decision makers and to keep the public informed.
- High priority should be placed on early identification and documentation of the true clinical picture to inform an appropriate health response.
- The clinical sector has a vital role in providing early warning of severity.
- The information needed to inform public health policy is not necessarily the information needed to inform the public about the disease.
- Collection and reporting of data is resource intensive and consideration needs to be given to ceasing some elements once they are no longer needed to inform decision making.
- Continued development of routine seasonal influenza surveillance would enable easy escalation during a pandemic.
Text box 3: Surveillance guidance from AHMPPI 2008
Objective
Objective
- Operational objective 1: Communicate the best available information to decision makers, health professionals and the public.
- The collection and analysis of information is critical to guide effective, timely and transparent decision making and to inform the public.
- Surveillance measures are a health sector decision.
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