National Influenza Centers (also called National Influenza Centres) are institutions which are formally recognized as such by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
(WHO).
WHO
article ''Global influenza surveillance''
"The WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network was established in 1952. The network comprises 4 WHO Collaborating Centres World Health Organization collaborating centres are institutions that work with the World Health Organization (WHO) in disciplines such as occupational health, food safety, and communicable disease prevention. There are over 700 such centres across ...
(WHO CCs) and 112 institutions in 83 countries, which are recognized by WHO as WHO National Influenza Centres (NICs). These NICs collect specimens in their country, perform primary virus isolation and preliminary antigenic characterization. They ship newly isolated strains to WHO CCs for high level antigenic and genetic analysis, the result of which forms the basis for WHO
Who or WHO may refer to:
* Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun
* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism
* World Health Organization
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
recommendations on the composition of influenza vaccine for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere each year."
Among the more than 110 National Influenza CentersWHO Collaborating Centres World Health Organization collaborating centres are institutions that work with the World Health Organization (WHO) in disciplines such as occupational health, food safety, and communicable disease prevention. There are over 700 such centres across ...
and reference laboratories that are involved in annual influenza vaccine composition recommendations.
See also
* Disease surveillance
Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, ...
* WHO collaborating centres in occupational health The WHO collaborating centres in occupational health constitute a network of institutions put in place by the World Health Organization to extend availability of occupational health coverage in both developed and undeveloped countries. The effort i ...
Sources and notes
External links
WHO Collaborating Centres and Reference Laboratories
World Health Organization's Guide on How to become a National Influenza center
{{authority control
Influenza
World Health Organization collaborating centres