Hirokazu Kawanohara

TL;DR: The estimated number of influenza cases was highly correlated with that predicted by the official sentinel surveillance, indicating that the prescription surveillance system presents great potential for monitoring influenza activity and for providing early detection of infectious disease outbreaks.

TL;DR: The estimated number of patients from NOSSID might not be precise, but it may be useful to monitor influenza trends and the estimated number from the PS was almost equivalent to that from the NDBEMC.

TL;DR: Pharmacy surveillance can provide estimates at any time as shown, which proves the usefulness of pharmacy surveillance, and international comparison of antimicrobials used is more valuable if performed regularly, even if not in real time.

TL;DR: Prescription surveillance in Japan has been reporting the estimated numbers of influenza and varicella patients and people prescribed certain drugs since 2009 and schemes to detect "unexplained" infectious diseases using PS information were examined, confirming its feasibility and effectiveness.

TL;DR: Fully automated real-time pharmacy surveys are useful in long-term observation e.g. detection of rapid emergence, identifying the peak, and careful monitoring of reemergence and demonstrated as the leading indicator for the official sentinel surveillance because of high correlation among them.