The IWK Emergency Department is one of 14 pediatric tertiary-care hospitals across Canada participating in the SPRINT-KIDS Project:  Surveillance Program for the Rapid IdeNtification and TracKing of Infectious Diseases in kidS. SPRINT-KIDS sites are members of Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC) and Pediatric Inpatient Research Networks (PIRN).

The SPRINT-KIDS surveillance network monitors real-time patterns of respiratory pathogens in children presenting for hospital care across the country. Its purpose is to quickly detect shifts in the epidemiology of common respiratory infections, such as COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and mycoplasma pneumoniae, and to provide timely information to clinicians, public health officials, and the public.

The project integrates detailed information on vaccination history, clinical treatments, and patient outcomes to offer a comprehensive picture of disease burden. It also supports evaluation of vaccine effectiveness in preventing illnesses that require hospital care, while maintaining ongoing surveillance for potential adverse events following immunization.

SPRINT-KIDS provides data to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that is published and available to the public via the Canadian Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/respiratory-virus-surveillance/. Real-time trends in the data collected can viewed on the SPRINT-KIDS dashboard: https://dashboard.sprint-kids.ca/. In addition, several manuscripts are in progress using SPRINT-KIDS data.

SPRINT-KIDS team:

(L-R)

Brett Plouffe, Jason Emsley, Kelly Trask, Sophie Marsh, Nick McCaughey, Taryn Forrestall