FLUTRACKING WEEKLY ONLINE COMMUNITY SURVEY OF INFLUENZA-LIKE ILLNESS ANNUAL REPORT, 2010

  • 1 December 2011
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 35  (4) , 288-293
Abstract
Flutracking is a national weekly online survey of influenza-like illness (ILI) completed by community members. Flutracking integrates participants' ILI symptom information with their influenza vaccination status to monitor influenza activity and field vaccine effectiveness (FVE). This report summarises results from the 2010 Flutracking season compared with previous seasons. Nationally, participation in Flutracking has more than doubled between 2008 and 2010, with 5,346 new participants enrolled or recruited in 2010 and a peak weekly participation of 10,773. By the end of the 2010 season, 5,904 of 9,109 (64.8%) participants had received the monovalent pandemic vaccine and/or the 2010 seasonal vaccine. From 2007 to 2010 FVE calculations demonstrated that the seasonal vaccine was effective except in 2009 during the pandemic. Peak 2010 ILI activity occurred in early June and August, and peak weekly 2010 ILI rates (4.2% among unvaccinated participants) were lower than the peak ILI rates during the 2009 pandemic (6.0% among unvaccinated participants). However, the decrease in laboratory notifications was much larger than the decrease in Flutracking rates. In summary, the number of Flutracking participants continued to steadily increase over the 2010 influenza season. The system has shown value in providing weekly vaccination uptake data during and beyond the 2009 influenza pandemic, as well as rapid FVE estimates that are qualitatively aligned with findings from other analyses of vaccine efficacy. Flutracking has also provided estimates of weekly community ILI activity that were not biased by health seeking behaviour and clinician testing practices.