Immunisation programs have traditionally relied on passive surveillance of disease prevalence and vaccine safety. Recognition of significant disease outbreak and safety signals maybe delayed due to the timing and nature of data collection in a passive surveillance system.

This seminar focuses on the world-leading active surveillance systems in place in Canada and Australia, giving insights into how this data complements traditional passive surveillance, informs decision making for immunisation programs and assists in both countries meeting international commitments for vaccine safety monitoring and disease reporting.  It is the way of the future.  

Associate Professor Julie Bettinger, provides insights from the Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program ACTive (IMPACT) and Canadian National Vaccine Safety Network (CANVAS). Dr Phillip Britton, spoke about the Australian Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance Network (PAEDS) and its role in shaping Australian immunisation policy. Ms Catherine Glover then provided the latest data from the Australian Active Vaccine Safety Surveillance Network (AusVaxSafety) highlighting the importance of this relatively new system to informing Australia’s vaccine safety surveillance.

Video resources 
Slides and audio from the webinar are available below. 
The session was chaired by Professor Kristine Macartney, NCIRS Director
 

Associate Professor Julie Bettinger
Dr. Bettinger is an Associate Professor at the Vaccine Evaluation Center in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose research interests include vaccine safety and vaccine preventable diseases (specifically meningococcal and pneumococcal invasive infections), as well as attitudes and beliefs around immunization uptake and use. She is the data center director for the Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program, Active (IMPACT), an active surveillance network for vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events in 12 tertiary care pediatric hospitals across Canada and the lead investigator for CIRN’s Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) network, which monitors the safety of influenza vaccines each year.

Dr Phillip Britton
Dr Britton is a paediatrician and infectious diseases physician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, and a senior lecturer in child and adolescent health with the University of Sydney. He is an early career clinician researcher with an interest in neurological infections, tropical infectious diseases, and international child health. His PhD investigated the clinical epidemiology of encephalitis in Australian Children, using a national, active, hospital-based surveillance network (Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance – PAEDS). He remains involved in active surveillance of childhood encephalitis, Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP – WHO polio surveillance), and influenza. His doctoral studies showed childhood encephalitis to be associated with epidemics of important emerging pathogens amongst children in Australia including EVA71 and HPeV3 and determined the magnitude of the contribution of influenza to this severe disease. 

Ms Catherine Glover
Catherine Glover is a Research Officer at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. As an epidemiologist for AusVaxSafety, she analyses data on adverse events following immunisation solicited via active surveillance. Catherine has a background in epidemiology, mathematics, and microbiology

Last updated December 2018