To date, a total of 124 professionals and 180 patients have participated in the 2023/2024 season of the Murcia Regional Health Sentinel Network, which starts in the week of October 2-8 and targets influenza surveillance. syncytial virus (RSV).
According to details from the community, 48 family doctors, 17 paediatricians and 59 primary care nurses participate in the network and collaborate on the assessment of risk factors, incidence or preventive and diagnostic measures for communicable and non-communicable diseases. as an intervention modality for respiratory diseases.
To do this, professionals select the first three patients with acute respiratory illness who visit the primary clinic on a specific day of the week, where they complete a brief survey, collect the patient’s risk factors and conduct a nasopharyngeal examination where samples are forwarded Microbiology Department, Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital.
There, samples are analyzed by PCR for circulating variants of influenza, Covid and RSV viruses and the information obtained is integrated into the Sentinel Surveillance System for Acute Respiratory Infections (SiVIRA) for analysis at national, European and global levels .
Last season, from October 3, 2022, to October 1, 2023, 2,480 patients participated in the Regional Health Sentinel Network, and samples were collected from 2,065 of these patients.
After analysis, a total of 229 positive cases (11.1%) for new coronavirus, 256 positive cases (12.4%) for influenza, and 113 positive cases (5.5%) for respiratory syncytial virus were obtained.
The Sentinel network was designed for the 2019/2020 season and will start operating in October 2022, monitoring influenza, COVID-19 and RSV viruses circulating in the Murcia region.