Performance Evaluation of Moving Epidemic Method Model in Determining Threshold Levels of Influenza Outbreaks in Iran

Background and Objectives: Timely dection of influenza outbreaks is very important for a better reponse to outbreaks. The aim of this study was to assess the moving epidemic method for determinating influenza outbreak threshold levels in Iran. Methods: The moving epidemic method was applied to the WHO Flunet website data from January 2010 to December 2017 with the aim of determining outbreak alert thresholds. Therefore, the performance of the moving epidemic method in identifying the onset of the outbreak over eight periods was reported using sensitivity and specificity indices. Results: A total of 69169 influenza-like illnesses were recorded in the Fluent website during the study period. The smallest number of influenza-like illnesses for the epidemic was 187 cases in the third period (2011-2012) and the maximum number was 1086 cases in the seventh period (2016-2015). The earliest epidemic occurred during the third and eighth periods of the 48th week, approximately in mid-February. The minimum duration of the epidemic was 8 weeks and the maximum was 13 weeks. The overall sensitivity and specificity of the moving epidemic method were 55% and 96%, respectively. Conclusion: The moving epidemic method could be used as a complementary method to detection of influenza outbreks. It is recommended to apply the moving epidemic method on influenza and similar communicable diseses.