Description
Pan American Health Organization. Washington, DC, United States of America.
Funda??o Oswaldo Cruz. Laborat?rio de V?rus Respirat?rio. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Instituto Costarricense de Investigaci?n y Ense?anza en Nutrici?n y Salud. Tres R?os, Cartago, Costa Rica.
Instituto de Diagn?stico y Referencia Epidemiol?gicos. Ciudad de M?xico, MX, Mexico.
Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas. Administraci?n Nacional de Laboratorios. Institutos de Salud "Dr. Carlos G. Malbran". Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Instituto Nacional de Investigaci?n en Salud P?blica. Guayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador.
Departamento de Laboratorio de Salud Publica. Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Minist?rio da Sa?de. Secretaria de Vigil?ncia em Sa?de. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.
Instituto Nacional de Investigaci?n en Salud P?blica. Guayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador.
Minist?rio da Sa?de. Secretaria de Vigil?ncia em Sa?de. Instituto Evandro Chagas. Ananindeua, PA, Brasil.
Instituto de Salud P?blica de Chile. Santiago, Santiago, Chile.
Instituto de Salud P?blica de Chile. Santiago, Santiago, Chile.
Departamento de Laboratorio de Salud Publica. Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Instituto de Diagn?stico y Referencia Epidemiol?gicos. Ciudad de M?xico, MX, Mexico.
Instituto Nacional de Salud. Chorrillos, Lima, Peru.
Funda??o Oswaldo Cruz. Laborat?rio de V?rus Respirat?rio. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Instituto Nacional de Salud. Chorrillos, Lima, Peru.
Ministerio de Salud P?blica. Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador.
Laboratorio Central de Salud P?blica. Ascuncion, Distrito Capital, Paraguay.
Instituto Nacional de Salud. Bogota, Cundinamarca, Colombia.
Instituto Adolfo Lutz. S?o Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas. Administraci?n Nacional de Laboratorios. Institutos de Salud "Dr. Carlos G. Malbran". Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Instituto Costarricense de Investigaci?n y Ense?anza en Nutrici?n y Salud. Tres R?os, Cartago, Costa Rica.
Instituto de Diagn?stico y Referencia Epidemiol?gicos. Ciudad de M?xico, MX, Mexico / National Autonomous University of Mexico. Faculty of Medicine. Division of Postgraduate Studies. Mexico City, MX, Mexico.
Departamento de Laboratorio de Salud Publica. Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Instituto Nacional de Salud. Bogota, Cundinamarca, Colombia.
Instituto Adolfo Lutz. S?o Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Funda??o Oswaldo Cruz. Laborat?rio de V?rus Respirat?rio. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
Laboratorio Central de Salud P?blica. Ascuncion, Distrito Capital, Paraguay.
Pan American Health Organization. Washington, DC, United States of America.
OBJECTIVE: Since the 2009 influenza pandemic, Latin American (LA) countries have strengthened their influenza surveillance systems. We analyzed influenza genetic sequence data from the 2017 through 2018 Southern Hemisphere (SH) influenza season from selected LA countries, to map the availability of influenza genetic sequence data from, and to describe, the 2017 through 2018 SH influenza seasons in LA. METHODS: We analyzed influenza A/H1pdm09, A/H3, B/Victoria and B/Yamagata hemagglutinin sequences from clinical samples from 12 National Influenza Centers (NICs) in ten countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay) with a collection date from epidemiologic week (EW) 18, 2017 through EW 43, 2018. These sequences were generated by the NIC or the WHO Collaborating Center (CC) at the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, uploaded to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) platform, and used for phylogenetic reconstruction. FINDINGS: Influenza hemagglutinin sequences from the participating countries (A/H1pdm09 n = 326, A/H3 n = 636, B n = 433) were highly concordant with the genetic groups of the influenza vaccine-recommended viruses for influenza A/H1pdm09 and influenza B. For influenza A/H3, the concordance was variable. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the constant evolution of influenza viruses, high-quality surveillance data-specifically genetic sequence data, are important to allow public health decision makers to make informed decisions about prevention and control strategies, such as influenza vaccine composition. Countries that conduct influenza genetic sequencing for surveillance in LA should continue to work with the WHO CCs to produce high-quality genetic sequence data and upload those sequences to open-access databases.
