All around the world, policy-makers for influenza preparedness rely on information from the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) to ensure timely and appropriate action. This year the GISRS turns 70. We asked policy-maker Anni Virolainen-Julkunen, Ministerial Counsellor to the government of Finland and Chair of the Management Board for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, what makes the network so valuable and special.
How do you work with the GISRS?
I have never worked directly with GISRS in terms of clinical work on influenza viruses, even when I was a clinical microbiologist working in a reference laboratory. But I have used – and continue to use – the information gathered by GISRS in my role as a civil servant shaping Finland’s influenza prevention policy.
How does GISRS support policy-making?
GISRS has a global reach, linking more than 170 facilities across 127 countries in a collaborative effort to identify and track influenza viruses in real time. Its surveillance data are critical to inform the right viral selection for seasonal influenza vaccines each year.
But the system also provides an invaluable platform for recognizing the unexpected, the unusual and the new. Time and again over the past 70 years it has alerted us to emerging threats, including avian influenza, pandemic influenza and, most recently, SARS-CoV-2.
What makes GISRS special?
GISRS is a unique example of local action leading to global good, enabled by seamless teamwork and continual improvement.
It begins with a wide range of skilled and motivated experts in the field. Doctors and nurses see patients and collect samples at sentinel sites. Technicians in national laboratories analyse the samples and report their results through national and international databases. Analysts in governments, industry and beyond use the data to develop and deliver goods and services, such as vaccines, for preventing and responding to influenza.
In this way, GISRS combines local results with global logistics and understanding for mutual benefit. It is a proven model for functional networking and public-private partnership that shows how sharing samples and knowledge is of mutual interest when all involved stand to benefit.
More than that, GISRS is an excellent example of how sharing leads to learning. GISRS members share more than virus samples or data: they share experience, expertise and, in many cases, equipment. They strengthen skills and provide resources. This type of sharing within GISRS enables continuous learning and builds capacity both materially and intellectually.
What comes next for GISRS?
The world is changing fast. Viral threats continue to emerge and the need for surveillance and response continues to grow. There is no doubt that GISRS can help us face the challenge. To do so, we need to integrate more pathogens into the system alongside influenza. We need to improve our sentinel surveillance and the data transfer between GISRS and the other networks like GISAID and FluNet, for example. And we need to consider the practical, administrative, and financial implications of doing so.
The past 70 years have shown us the value of GISRS for influenza, and the next 70 will show us its value beyond.
By Anni Virolainen-Julkunen, MD, PhD, Specialist in Clinical Microbiology, Finland
