The internet has been used to monitor patterns of influenza-like-illness (ILI) in the Netherlands and Belgium since 2003, in Portugal since 2005 and Italy since 2007. The UK flu survey extends this system to the UK. The platform has just been launched and its depletion is one of the tasks of Epiwork WP 5. So far, almost 400 volunteers are participating. Everybody living in the UK can register here and start participating.

The UK platform is also the first IMS that implemented a Contact Survey to detect contact patterns data among the volunteers.

This survey has been developed by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The LSHTM is the UK’s national school of public health training and research and is found in Bloomsbury, London, near the British Museum.

Coordinator: AI BV, the Netherlands

Partners: ISI, Italy,; FGC-IGC, Portugal; CREATE-NET, Italy; LSHTM, United Kingdom; KU Leuven, Belgium; FFCUL, Portugal (for WP3); SMI, Sweden (for WP6).

The first WP5 meeting has been held in Amsterdam, to discuss the following issues:

1. Introduction to the Internet-based Monitoring System (IMS)
2. Results 2003-2009 in the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal: TheGroteGriepmeting and Gripenet
3. First experience in Italy, 2008-2009: Influweb
4. New Influenzanet Template Design: templates or websites on the basis of 2-4 concepts, including the general outline of the website, an Influenzanet logo, maps on an European scale.
5. Contact Pattern Data
6. Epiwork IMS European Database
7. Epiwork’s epidemic marketplace: linkage of the IMS database infrastructure of WP5 to the epidemic marketplace platform of WP3 and the epidemic modelling platform of WP4 (more…)

All the IMS (Internet Monitoring System) developed by the different teams taking part to the Epiwork project have started again their surveillance activity in response to the recent swine flu outbreak from Mexico. Concurrently, all the modelling and simulation activities are focused on producing predictions about the spreading of the swine flu and risk maps for the whole world.