SISEA activities in Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang, Vietnam, during 2008–2009

Background In recent years, the situation of dangerous infectious disease has developed more complex. Some emerging infectious diseases such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), avian influenza tend to globalization. In Central Vietnam, a lot of infectious diseases circulating every year caused serious consequences such as SARI, VE, DF/DHF, etc. For SARI, except influenza virus which has monitored, the other respiratory pathogens have not been concerned yet. It’s difficult to detect some agents cause disease in regional and provincial laboratory. In order to respond the complex development of emerging diseases such as SARS, avian influenza, severe acute respiratory infection (SARI), viral encephalitis (VE) and Dengue fever/Dengue haemorrhagic fever, Pasteur Institute Network in Southeast Asia has implemented the project “Surveillance and Investigation of epidemic situation in South East Asia (SISEA)”.