Editorially curated · sa-influenza-iiss
Saudi Integrated Influenza Sentinel Surveillance System
Collects nationwide respiratory samples and epidemiologic data, with central molecular subtyping and genetic sequencing for strain monitoring and international sharing.
01 / Project overview
What the record establishes.
- Geographic scope
- Nationwide sentinel network of 100 sites, including 30 hospitals and 70 primary-health-care centers
- Project type
- National respiratory-virus genomic surveillance program
- Research domain
- Influenza and respiratory pathogen surveillance
- Years
- 2017–
- Lifecycle status
- active
- Status basis
- Sentinel surveillance began in 2017 and expanded; IISS launched in 2022 at 100 sites, and WHO recognized the Weqaya laboratory as Saudi Arabia's National Influenza Centre in March 2022.
- Status evidence date
- 2022-12-13
- Scale
- Expanded from 15 sentinel sites in six health regions in 2017 to 50 sites in 20 health regions in 2021 and 100 IISS sites in 2022.
02 / Organizations and population
Who and what the project connects.
- Lead organizations
- Saudi Public Health Authority / Weqaya · Saudi Ministry of Health
- Partner organizations
- World Health Organization Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System
- Organism / population
- Respiratory specimens from Saudi patients with influenza-like illness or severe acute respiratory infection
03 / Data and access
What exists and how it can be reached.
Data types
- RT-PCR
- influenza subtyping
- viral genome sequencing
- sentinel epidemiology
Data access
Public-health surveillance; selected sequences shared through WHO/GISRS systems
Identifiers
No public accession or identifier is listed for this record.
04 / Evidence and provenance
Why the record is included.
Inclusion basis
Named nationwide respiratory surveillance system with explicit sequencing workflow, site expansion and WHO National Influenza Centre designation.
Editorial note
Operational status is directly evidenced through December 2022; a later public program update was not located. The 20 regions are surveillance/health regions, not Saudi administrative regions.
Sources
- primary record source Verified 2026-08-15
Release v0.2.0