Abstract

As Global Health Security partners endeavor to support capacity building globally, it is important to examine prior efforts for building surveillance and laboratory systems for emerging infectious diseases. CDC provides financial support and technical assistance to foreign governments for the development or improvement of influenza surveillance networks in over fifty countries through cooperative agreements. In 2004, nine countries were awarded a first round of capacity building agreements and seven of these countries transitioned to sustainability agreements in 2009. The seven countries had active World Health Organization (WHO) National Influenza Centers (NIC) and were committed to developing plans for sustainability of their influenza surveillance program. The objective of this review is to document the development and enrichment of influenza programs and lessons learned from the first countries completing ten years of support.

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