Influenza A and B viruses cause significant human disease worldwide through regular outbreaks and epidemics of seasonal influenza, and occasional pandemics when a novel influenza A virus emerges. Whereas Australia and New Zealand have well-established systems for community and laboratory-based surveillance of influenza, most other countries of the Pacific are only beginning to develop such systems with the support of various global and regional agencies and networks. Here we describe the role of the World Health Organization Global Influenza Surveillance Network and other organizations in laboratory-based influenza surveillance in the region and review some of the available data on seasonal and pandemic influenza in the developed and developing countries of the Pacific. The particular features of the Pacific Island countries and territories as small dispersed island communities, together with the greater susceptibility of indigenous people to the severe effects of influenza, highlight the importance of developing local laboratory-based surveillance systems. Such systems will improve the understanding, detection and control of seasonal influenza while also providing early warning of the emergence of potential pandemic viruses.
Disease Outbreaks ; Humans ; Influenza, Human/epidemiology ; Influenza, Human/virology ; Pacific Islands/epidemiology ; Population Surveillance ; Seasons ; World Health Organization.

Bacteria, pigs, rats, pots, plants, words, bones, stones, earrings, diseases, and genetic indicators of all varieties are markers and proxies for the complexity of interweaving trails and stories integral to understanding human movement and knowledge assemblage in Southeast Asia and around the world. Understanding human movement and knowledge assemblage is central to comprehending the genetic basis of disease, especially of a cancer like nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The problem is that the markers and trails, taken in isolation, do not all tell the same story. Human movement and knowledge assemblage are in constant interaction in an adaptive process of co-production with genes, terrain, climate, sea level changes, kinship relations, diet, materials, food and transport technologies, social and cognitive technologies, and knowledge strategies and transmission. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is the outcome of an adaptive process involving physical, social, and genetic components.
Americas ; epidemiology ; Archaeology ; Asia, Southeastern ; epidemiology ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; analysis ; China ; epidemiology ; Emigration and Immigration ; Humans ; Knowledge ; Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms ; epidemiology ; etiology ; genetics ; Pacific Islands ; epidemiology

Zika virus (ZIKV) was spread to both eastward and westward from Uganda where the virus was identified approximately in 1947 by a group of arbovirus researchers. In 2015, ZIKV reached Americas with major outbreaks in Brazil. Most countries with mosquito transmitted ZIKV infection are located in tropical and subtropical areas, where ZIKV is endemic with other flaviviruses, including JEV, dengue and yellow fever virus. Approximately 40 countries in Central and South Americas and territories in South Pacific Islands and South East Asia show autochthonous ZIKV endemics. American lineage of ZIKV is known significantly to be mutated in susceptibility to host and in pathogenicity from Asian and Asian lineages approximately since 2014. Early and specific identification of ZIKV infection is very important for the effective management of patients. First of all, optimal collection of specimens for the laboratory diagnosis is required for both nucleic acid testing (NAT) and serological tests. Specimens for NAT tests and serological tests should be determined by the available laboratory resources, work-flow in each laboratory and the geographic areas of specimen collected in addition to days after showing symptoms. Testing strategy for specific differentiation among flaviviruses will vary depending on the prevalence of viruses known to be circulating in the area where the patients were exposed. NAT will be employed for the patients presenting with onset of symptoms less than 7 days. Advanced diagnostic technologies should be continuously developed for the increase of specificity and sensitivity of ZIKV diagnosis.
Americas ; Arboviruses ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Biology* ; Brazil ; Clinical Laboratory Techniques* ; Culicidae ; Dengue ; Diagnosis ; Disease Outbreaks ; Epidemiology* ; Far East ; Flavivirus ; Humans ; Pacific Islands ; Prevalence ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Serologic Tests ; South America ; Uganda ; Virulence ; Yellow fever virus ; Zika Virus*