National Respiratory Infections Surveillance Committee (NRISC)

Role

The NRISC replaces the previous National Influenza Surveillance Committee. The NRISC supports high-quality surveillance of communicable and notifiable respiratory diseases, including:

• COVID-19
• influenza (flu)
• respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
• other acute respiratory pathogens.

Objectives

The NRISC aims to bring together health experts to advise on, develop and maintain surveillance systems for acute respiratory infections. 

They work to ensure that these surveillance systems are:

• effective, responsive and nationally scalable
• consistent across jurisdictions and surveillance systems
• developed and maintained so they can quickly identify important aspects of an epidemic or pandemic, such as
  • how it spreads (transmission)
  • the amount of disease in the community
  • the severity of the disease
  • the impact on the community and health systems
  • other important epidemiological characteristics
• reviewed to find potential gaps in their scope and methods to identify opportunities for improvement.

The NRISC also works to:

• develop, maintain and implement the Australian National Surveillance Plan for COVID-19, Influenza, and RSV
• consult other experts to develop, maintain and implement surveillance plans for other epidemic or pandemic acute respiratory infections
• make recommendations to the CDNA on the surveillance of acute respiratory infections in Australia.

Members

The NRISC includes representatives from:

• the Australian Centre for Disease Control
• state and territory health departments
• New Zealand Government Ministry of Health
• Public Health Laboratory Network (PHLN)
• World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza (WHO CC)
• each national influenza centre (NIC)
  • Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR)
  • PathWest Laboratory Medicine, WA
  • Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL)
• Australian Sentinel Practice Research Network (ASPREN)
• Public Health Rapid, Emergency, Disease and Syndromic Surveillance (PHREDSS)
• Influenza Complications Alert Network (FluCAN)
• Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) network
• Healthdirect Australia
• FluTracking
• Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Melbourne
• Short Period Incidence Study of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SPRINT-SARI) Australia
• Communicable Disease Genomic Network (CDGN).

Meetings

The NRISC meets each month throughout the year.

Related committees

The NRISC is a subcommittee of the CDNA and reports and provides advice to the CDNA. The CDNA endorses the NRISC’s annual work plan.

Members also actively participate in other committees and working groups that need feedback on processes for acute respiratory infection surveillance. In these groups, members provide information and advice on behalf of the NRISC.

Contact