The Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program: Celebrating 15 years of successful paediatric surveillance.

1Public Health Agency of Canada; 2Canadian Paediatric Society, Ottawa, Ontario Correspondence: Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program, 2305 St Laurent Boulevard, Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4J8. Telephone 613-526-9397 ext 239, fax 613-526-3332, e-mail [email protected] Accepted for publication March 2, 2011 Surveillance is a key component of the practice of medicine, which enables the tracking and studying of conditions (1,2). The Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP), an innovative epidemiological real-time tool modelled after the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit, was established in 1996 under the visionary collaboration of the late Dr Victor Marchessault, Executive Director of the Canadian Paediatric Society, and Dr Philippe Duclos, formerly with the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The program has been in operation for 15 years and, to date, has studied 45 conditions and confirmed more than 5000 cases. The present article describes the CPSP, highlighting the successes and challenges, to illustrate the importance and advantages of national and international collaboration on surveillance.