The seasonal influenza virus, or flu as it is widely known, infects over a billion people a year, resulting in up to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually.
For this episode, TDR have partnered with GISRS, the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System, providing us with a deeper understanding of how they coordinate data-sharing with a network of scientists, this not only identifies new influenza virus variants through the collection of samples and gene sequencing as they evolve, it also provides key information about their severity and mode of transmission.
Podcast host, Garry Aslanyan, brings together two professors to share their unique experiences from both the global and national level of the influenza response: John McCauley and Mahmudur Rahman.
Many thanks to Garry and the Global Health Matters podcast team.
The Berlin Institute of Global Health is a partner of TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases: a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. It is co-sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).