SHIVERS 2012-2017 study findings

The original SHIVERS project (2012-2017), funded by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Grant No: 5U01IP000480), was a five year multi-million dollar set of studies and surveillance based in the greater Auckland area.

This original SHIVERS project aimed to increase understanding of respiratory viruses:

To investigate interaction between influenza and other respiratory pathogens
To ascertain the causes of respiratory mortality
To understand non-severe respiratory illness
To estimate influenza infection through a serosurvey
To identify influenza risk factors
To study the immune response to influenza
To determine the healthcare and societal economic burden and vaccine cost-effectiveness of influenza

The original SHIVERS project established two enhanced population-based surveillance systems covering 906,000 residents in the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) and Counties Manukau District Health Board (CMDHB) regions:

Hospital-based surveillance for acute respiratory infections at Auckland City(external link), Starship(external link), Middlemore(external link), and Kidz First(external link) from 2012 to 2016. The New Zealand Ministry of Health (MoH) has funded severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) surveillance during the winter at these hospitals since 2016.
Community based surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI) visits to 16 general practices from 2013 to 2016. The national, MoH funded ILI surveillance system and the SHIVERS ILI surveillance system were merged for the 2016 season and continue to serve as the monitoring system for community flu and respiratory viruses.