COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) hospitalisations associated with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2
Since the emergence of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome – coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has, as of 27 April 2021, resulted in more than 147 million cases and 3 million deaths worldwide.
After the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, a number of Member States implemented sentinel surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) for influenza. In these surveillance systems, case-based data (on all or a subset of patients) is systematically collected to monitor the severity and the burden of disease, identify viruses associated with severe clinical presentations, and determine risk factors for severe illness.
