Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS)

a joint initiative of the australian paediatric surveillance unit and national centre for immunisation research and surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases

The Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) is a pilot project initiated in 2007 and coordinated by the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit (APSU) and the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS). The project is funded by the Population Health Division of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. PAEDS has proven the feasibility of conducting hospital-based surveillance for uncommon, serious, vaccine-related childhood conditions in Australia. PAEDS is an important capacity building initiative to enhance existing public health surveillance relevant to vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDS), with the ultimate aim of improving child health outcomes.

A network of clinicians and public health researchers was established in four tertiary paediatirc hospitals: The Children's Hospital at Westmead Sydney, Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Women's and Children's Hospital Adelaide and Princess Margaret Hospital Perth. Each employed a part time surveillance nurse. A centralised database, data management procedures, and communication strategy for the network was establised and managed by the APSU.

The unique aspects of PAEDS include its capacity for:

Ascertainment of cases unlikely to be detected through existing surveillance systems
Timely case ascertainment and data review with weekly uploads into a central database
Data not obtained by other means eg. vaccination, presentation, treatment and outcome
Collection and analysis of biological samples linked to clinical data for the same patient
Flexibility and responsiveness to urgent or emerging conditions; outbreaks or epidemics
Population-based studies where populations around a reporting hospital are well defined
Potential for verification of conditions included in data linkage initiatives, e.g. adverse events

Studies under surveillance:

Acute flaccid paralysis, intussusception, seizures in infants aged one month to eight months and varicella

PAEDS has demonstrated the capacity to respond rapidly and to provide timely detailed data on emerging diseases. An emergency grant under the recent swine flu H1N1 initiative of the NHMRC enabled PAEDS to include surveillance for children hospitalised with influenza during the global pandemic. Additional funding obtained from NSW Health has allowed us to extend this influenza surveillance to include Sydney Children's Hospital and John Hunter Hospital, thereby increasing surveillance coverage during the pandemic.

PAEDS Study Group:

Prof Elizabeth Elliott, Dr Yvonne Zurynski and Leanne Vidler - APSU

Prof Peter McIntyre and Prof Robert Booy - NCIRS

Prof Jim Buttery and Dr Jenny Royle - Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne

Prof Mike Gold and Dr Helen Marshall - Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide

Dr Nicholas Wood - The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney

Dr Peter Richmond - Princess Margaret Hospital, Perth