Please note: As of 1 July 2025, the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science) is the new name for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Articles and information published before this date may reference the organisation's former name.
New Zealand’s respiratory surveillance programme has been in place since 1989 as a part of the WHO Global influenza surveillance network.
This surveillance system provides important information on respiratory viruses circulating in the community. One of the outputs from this programme is our respiratory illness dashboard.
The respiratory illness surveillance program relies on the active participation of sentinel GPs to help identify circulating respiratory viruses from patients presenting with influenza-like illness (ILI) in the community. We ask practices to take 3-6 swabs per week during winter.
To help promote and raise awareness of this vital program, we have created two short informative videos. The first video provides an overview of the surveillance program, highlighting its importance and how it works.
The second video offers more detailed information about the process from taking a swab, to testing, to provision of intelligence on our respiratory illness surveillance dashboard.
