The DRIVE Coordinator has visited sites who have just joined the project in the past few weeks. The new sites based in France, Spain and Luxembourg, they will be a significant asset to the team.
Inserm / F-CRIN / I-REIVAC Network (France)
The Cochin Hospital in Paris was visited on 23rd October as part of the I-REIVAC Network, which includes five large French University hospitals located in Paris (Cochin and Bichat hospitals), Lyon, Montpellier and Rennes. They will be involved in DRIVE by contributing data from the test negative design (TND) study for the influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) estimation.
Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital (Spain)
This hospital located in Badalona (Barcelona) was visited on 30th October. This new research collaborator will contribute to the 2019-20 season with data for influenza vaccine effectiveness estimates through a TND. The Department of Preventive Medicine and the Department of Microbiology of the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital are responsible for annual surveillance and laboratory analysis of all patients with influenza respectively, serving a population of more than 250 000 inhabitants. .
La Paz University Hospital (Spain)
This hospital located in Madrid was visited on 31st October and will also contribute its data to the TND for IVE calculations. Their study population will depend on the catchment area of their hospital in the north of Madrid, covering approximately 600 000 – 800 000 people. It will include all patients older than 14 years old admitted to the Adult Emergency Department.
Influenza Sentinel Surveillance Network (Luxembourg)
This was visited on 8th November and while not a new site they joined late last season and their data was used for sensitivity analysis. The network is composed of 13 general practitioners (GPs) representing 3% of all GPs in Luxembourg and 3 pediatricians representing 3% of all pediatricians.