The NCIRD Influenza Division (ID) is seeking to initiate a cooperative agreement with the All India Institute for Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India, to conduct research studies to estimate incidence, economic burden and risk factors for influenza among older adults and other priority groups
for influenza immunization, and to identify effective strategies for reducing this burden.
AIIMS has an established respiratory virus active surveillance system among older adults, which can be utilized to expand and conduct additional research on epidemiologic and economic burden of influenza in this population and other priority groups.
This surveillance platform has allowed the research team at AIIMS to better understand risk factors for mild to severe influenza disease; however, due to the small sample size of older adults in the current cohort, robust estimates of disease and economic burden are not yet available.
This new cooperative agreement will allow NCIRD ID to expand collaborations with AIIMS to examine this population in more depth as well as other priority groups, to inform vaccine policy in India.