Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan:102:115-117.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.10.037. Epub 2020 Oct 16.

Monitoring the mortality impact of COVID-19 in Europe: What can be learned from 2009 influenza H1N1p mortality studies?

Lisa Staadegaard  1 , Robert J Taylor  2 , Peter Spreeuwenberg  1 , Saverio Caini  1 , Lone Simonsen  3 , John Paget  4
Affiliations

Monitoring the mortality impact of COVID-19 in Europe: What can be learned from 2009 influenza H1N1p mortality studies?

Lisa Staadegaard et al. Int J Infect Dis. 2021 Jan.

Abstract

Objectives: Understanding the proportion of pandemic deaths captured as 'laboratory-confirmed' deaths is crucial. We assessed the ability of laboratory-confirmed deaths to capture mortality in the EU during the 2009 pandemic, and examined the likelihood that these findings are applicable to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Methods: We present unpublished results from the Global Pandemic Mortality (GLaMOR) project, in which country-specific mortality estimates were made for the 2009 influenza H1N1p pandemic. These estimates were compared with laboratory-confirmed deaths during the 2009 pandemic to estimate the ability of surveillance systems to capture pandemic mortality.

Results: For the 2009 influenza H1N1p pandemic, we estimated that the proportion of true pandemic deaths captured by laboratory-confirmed deaths was approximately 67%. Several differences between the two pandemics (e.g. age groups affected) make it unlikely that this capture rate will be equally high for SARS-CoV-2.

Conclusion: The surveillance of laboratory-confirmed deaths in the EU during the 2009 pandemic was more accurate than previously assumed. We hypothesize that this method is less reliable for SARS-CoV-2. Near-real-time excess all-cause mortality estimates, routinely compiled by EuroMOMO, probably offer a better indicator of pandemic mortality. We urge more countries to join this project and that national-level absolute mortality numbers are presented.

Keywords: COVID-19; Europe; Influenza; Mortality; Surveillance.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Briand S., Mounts A., Chamberland M. 2011. Challenges of global surveillance during an influenza pandemic. Available at: https://www.who.int/influenza/surveillance_monitoring/Challenges_global_... [Accessed 23 March 2020] - PMC - PubMed
    1. Comas-Herrera A., Zalakaín J., Lemmon E., Henderson D., Litwin C., Hsu A.T. LTCcovid.org; 2020. Mortality associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes: early international evidence. Available at: https://ltccovid.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Mortality-associated-wit... [Accessed 20 April 2020]
    1. Dawood F.S., Iuliano A.D., Reed C., Meltzer M.I., Shay D.K., Cheng P.Y. Estimated global mortality associated with the first 12 months of 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1 virus circulation: a modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2012;12(9):687–695. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(12)70121-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. ECDC . 2009. Timeline on the pandemic (H1N1) 2009. Available at: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/seasonal-influenza/2009-influenza-h1n1-tim... [Accessed 30 March 2020]
    1. ECDC . 2010. 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic — daily update (18 January 2010)