Affiliations:
1 World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for
Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the input and feedback from colleagues at the
European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), namely Eeva K
Broberg, Edoardo Colzani and Phillip Zucs.
We express our gratitude to all ECDC staff involved in the RSV data
collection and the TESSy data management team, especially Marius
Valentin Valcu, for the technical support. We would also like to
acknowledge the physicians and nurses of sentinel network sites and
hospitals for their contribution in collecting specimens for RSV
testing. We also gratefully acknowledge the input of national clinical,
laboratory and public health staff involved in surveillance activities
and data submission to TESSy. The authors would also like to thank all
countries for the provision of data, including the following:
Belarus: Inna Karaban (Head of Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and
Prevention, Ministry of Health, Minsk, Belarus).
Belgium: BELSARI-NET group consisting of Department of Infectiology, UZ
Brussel, Brussels (Lucie Seyler), Department of Infectious Diseases,
Centre hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Brussels (Nicolas Dauby,
Benedicte Delaere, Marc Bourgeois), Department of Laboratory Medicine,
Medical Microbiology, Algemeen Ziekenhuis Sint-Jan, Brugge-Oostende AV
(Evelyn Petit, Marijke Reynders), Department of Microbiology and
Infection control, UZ Brussel, Brussels (Els Van Nedervelde, Thomas
Demuyser, Arne Witdouck, Siel Daelemans, Virgini Van Buggenhout,
Caroline Wylock), Department of Microbiology, Jessa Ziekenhuis, Hasselt
(Door Jouck, Koen Magerman, Marieke Bleyen), Epidemiology of Infectious
Diseases, Sciensano, Brussels (Melissa Vermeulen, Sebastien Fierens),
National Influenza Centre, Sciensano, Brussels (François Dufrasne, Sarah
Denayer, Cyril Barbezange), Pediatrics Department, CHU Saint-Pierre,
Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels (Marc Hainaut), Service of
Clinical Biology, Grand Hôpital de Charleroi, Charleroi (Benédicte
Lissoir) and Service of Infectiology, Grand Hôpital de Charleroi,
Charleroi (Xavier Holemans, Catherine Sion).
Czechia: Jan Kyncl, Alexander Nagy, Pavel Slezak, Jaromira Vecerova,
David Vostrak (all from the National Institute of Public Health, Prague,
Czech Republic).
Denmark: Members of the Danish National Influenza Team: Hanne-Dorthe
Emborg, Jens Nielsen, Lisbet Krause Knudsen, Lasse Skafte Vestergaard,
Amanda Bolt Botnen, Jesper Schak Krog.
Estonia: Irina Eero (Laboratory of Infectious Diseases), Liisa Lilje
(Laboratory of Infectious Diseases) and Eliisa Metsoja (Estonian
Health Board Influenza Centre, chief specialist).
France: Bruno Lina, Martine Valette, Sylvie van der Werf, Thierry
Blanchon, Nael Zemali, Sylvie Behillil, Delphine Viriot.
Ireland: Joan O’Donnell, Jeff Connell, Irish sentinel GP network, ICGP,
NVRL, SARI surveillance team and HPSC influenza team.
The Netherlands: We thank the Dutch Working Group on Clinical Virology
(NWKV) from the Dutch Society for Clinical Microbiology (NVMM) and all
participating laboratories for providing the virological data from the
weekly laboratory virological report (non-sentinel data). We thank
Anne-Marie van den Brandt, Bas van der Veer, Lynn Aarts and Hai Xi
Wiegmans, representing the wider team of technicians participating in
RSV molecular diagnostics. We thank Rianne van Gageldonk-Lafeber, Marit
de Lange, Daphne Reukers and Liz Jenniskens, from the RIVM EPI
respiratory surveillance team. We thank Mariette Hooiveld from Nivel,
the GP’s participating in the Nivel sentinel surveillance network and
their patients for participating in the respiratory surveillance.
Portugal: Portuguese GP Sentinel Network, Portuguese Laboratory Network
for Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses Diagnosis; Ana Rita Torres
(Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo
Jorge); Aryse Melo, Camila Henriques, Inês Costa, Licínia Gomes, Miguel
Lança, Nuno Verdasca (National Reference Laboratory for Influenza and
Other Respiratory Viruses, Infectious Diseases Department, National
Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge).
Spain: Concepción Delgado-Sanz, Clara Mazagatos, Susana Monge (National
Center of Epidemiology, CIBERESP; Carlos III Health Institute);
Inmaculada Casas (National Center of Microbiology, CIBERESP; Carlos III
Health Institute); Tomás Vega (Servicio de Información de Salud Pública,
DGSP, Consejería de Sanidad, Castilla y León).
Sweden: AnnaSara Carnahan (Folkhälsomyndigheten, Solna).
Switzerland: Swiss Sentinel Network and the Federal Office of Public
Health.
United Kingdom (Wales): Jana Zitha, Panoraia Kalapotharakou, Anastasia
Couzens, Kathleen Pheasant and Laura Gifford (Public Health Wales
Virology and ARI surveillance team).
Uzbekistan: Dr Bakhodir Yusupaliyev, (Head of the Sanitary and
Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health Service of the Republic of
Uzbekistan) and Dr Sultan Djemileva, (Head of the Virological Laboratory
of the Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare and Public Health Service of
the Republic of Uzbekistan).
Kosovo11This designation is without prejudice to positions on
status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the
Kosovo Declaration of Independence. All references to Kosovo in this
document should be understood to be in the context of the United
Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).: Zana Deva (National
Institute of Public Health of Kosovo) and Pranvera Kacaniku (National
Institute of Public Health of Kosovo).
Funding
information:
The WHO Regional Office for Europe was supported for work on influenza
and other respiratory viruses by a cooperative agreement from the United
States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NU51IP000936); the
funder had no role in the analysis or interpretation of the data.
Conflict of
interest:
The following authors declare having received funding from the
innovative medicines initiative (IMI): Adam Meijer (The Netherlands),
Anne Teirlinck (The Netherlands). All other authors have no conflicts of
interest to declare.
Disclaimer :
The author affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO) is alone
responsible for the views expressed in this publication and they do not
necessarily represent the decisions or policies of the WHO.