What is the Hawaii Influenza
Surveillance Program?
Hawaii’s influenza surveillance
program is made possible by the
cooperative agreement of several
organizations within and outside
the Department of Health.
Your physicians,
hospitals, commercial
laboratories, the Department of
Health’s Disease Outbreak
Control and State Laboratories
Divisions collaborate to make
influenza surveillance in Hawaii
possible.
What information does the
Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH)
use to track flu in Hawaii?
HDOH monitors flu in Hawaii
through several resources:
•• Physicians and laboratories report severe cases of influenza, so that we can track and investigate those flu infections
that result in hospitalizations.
• Some
hospitals that conduct their own influenza testing report all positive cases to HDOH.
•• Hawaii’s
sentinel providers report
the number of patients they see
in their own medical practices
for flu-like-illnesses.
• The Hawaii Department of Health’s
State Laboratories Division receives and tests thousands of
specimens through commercial
laboratories from
individuals who visited their
physicians for flu like
illnesses to determine whether
they were infected with the flu,
and if so, what type.
•• The State Laboratories Division also
sends several flu isolates to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).Using this system, the
HDOH informs CDC of the types of
flu viruses circulating in
Hawaii.In exchange, the CDC
conducts detailed analysis on
the specimens and sends us
further information about the
influenza trends in Hawaii.
•• Schools and Long Term Care Facilities
report suspected outbreaks of
influenza to HDOH.
HDOH routinely
investigates such reports.
•• Hawaii receives specimen submissions
from the Hawaii Quarantine Station at the Honolulu
International Airport through our Airport Surveillance
Program.
Through this system, we
identify travelers entering our
state with influenza like
illness, and monitor flu strains
that enter our islands through
airways.
• HDOH’s Vital Statistics Program provides year-round information on the number of pneumonia and influenza related deaths in the city of Honolulu each week.
Does Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) know about every influenza case in the State of Hawaii?
No. HDOH neither attempts to keep
track of all influenza cases in
Hawaii, nor is such a task truly
possible.
Flu is a common viral
respiratory
illness.
Many people with the flu
do not go to the doctor when
they become ill; many doctors do
not perform influenza testing.
Some doctors perform
testing in house but do not
report these results to HDOH.
HDOH does not make
reporting of all influenza cases
mandatory because such
information is not useful. The point of influenza surveillance is to understand flu trends and estimate numbers rather than get actual counts.
Our goal is not simply to get an accurate count of flu
cases in Hawaii.
We would rather spend our
time using the information we
obtain to help protect our
public from the flu than simply
counting thousands of flu cases
across the state.
What does the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) do with all the
specimens it receives?
HDOH’s State Laboratories Division routinely tests thousands of specimens
each year for influenza.
Testing is conducted
using state of the
art
Real Time Polymerase Chain
Reaction (RT-PCR) and viral
culture techniques.
RT-PCR is a fast and
reliable technique used to
detect the presence and type of
influenza in a specimen.
Viral culture is a slower
technique, taking several weeks
for viral isolation; however,
this method is considered the
“gold standard” for influenza
testing.
Specimens are analyzed
using either or both techniques
as necessary, and sometimes
forwarded to the CDC for further
analysis.
How is the data received by the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH)
interpreted?
The results of our State Laboratories Division influenza testing are used
to understand influenza trends
in the State of Hawaii.
Because of
such testing, we know what types
of influenza and other
respiratory viruses circulate in
our populations including their
relative proportions, whether
the current flu vaccine protects
us against the circulating
influenza strains, when we
observe the most influenza
during the flu season, and the
distribution of influenza across
the islands.
Data obtained by the
Hawaii Department of Health from
the State
Laboratories Division,
physicians, laboratories,
hospitals, commercial
laboratories, sentinel
providers, CDC, schools, long
term care facilities, Hawaii’s
Airport Quarantine Station, and
the Vital Statistics Program is
primarily used to protect the
public, and keep Hawaii’s
residents informed about how to
avoid getting the flu, what to
do when you get sick, and how
Hawaii’s flu trends may affect
you.
As part of HDOH’s efforts to keep the public informed, influenza data from
various sources is compiled to
provide a thorough and robust
understanding of the influenza
trends in our state.
HDOH compiles weekly and
annual reports to summarize all
the information it receives.
View HDOH’s latest
weekly influenza report.
INFLUENZA TRENDS IN HAWAII
How can I learn about seasonal influenza trends in Hawaii?
How do Hawaii’s influenza trends compare with those on the US mainland?
Each week, the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) publishes a “real time”
up-to-date influenza report that
informs you of various influenza
trends in the state.
The report provides
national data during the flu
season (October through mid-May)
so you can compare Hawaii’s
trends with those seen on the US
mainland.
At the end of each flu
season, HDOH publishes an annual
seasonal summary that describes
influenza trends over the course
of the flu season. View HDOH’s
latest
weekly influenza report.
How can I learn about seasonal influenza trends in the United States?
Each week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publish an
influenza report that informs
you of influenza trends across
the
United States.
In addition, the CDC also
prepares and publishes an annual
seasonal summary at the end of
each flu season.
To view the CDC’s flu
reports, please
click here.