Influenza and other respiratory pathogens programme contributes to first issue of Public Health Panorama

The first issue of Public Health Panorama, WHO/Europe's new bilingual (English/Russian) journal, has 2 papers prepared by the programme on influenza and other respiratory pathogens.

The first paper "New policy formulation methodology paves the way for sustainable laboratory systems in Europe" describes the work aimed on improvement of laboratory services under the aegis of WHO/Europe's "Better Labs Better Health" initiative launched in 2012. The paper was prepared in cooperation with national authorities of the Republic of Moldova and Tajikistan, as well as KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) Biomedical Research, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Laboratory Strengthening, the Netherlands.

The second paper "Performance of the European Region influenza surveillance network: alignment with global standards" assesses quantitative and qualitative information against 7 principal objectives of influenza surveillance outlined in the 2013 "Global epidemiological surveillance standards for influenza" to determine the performance of the WHO European Region influenza surveillance network. The paper was written in cooperation with Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden.

Public Health Panorama provides a platform to scientists and public health practitioners for publication of lessons learned from the field, as well as original research work, to facilitate the use of evidence and good practice for public health action.