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We assessed whether acute febrile illness surveillance could provide timely estimates of population immunity. In the Dominican Republic, antibody levels and inferred protection were similar between surveillance data and household survey serum samples, suggesting that surveillance platforms may offer a scalable approach to track population-level protection.
Cross-sectional population-representative serosurveys currently serve as the standard for estimating population immunity. However, the discrete timeframe, high cost, logistical complexity, and long timelines of that survey method often limit its utility during rapidly evolving outbreaks, when timely public health decision-making is essential.
The COVID-19 pandemic evidenced this limitation, when the processing of serologic samples for a national household serosurvey in the Dominican Republic ( 1 ) in 2021—although methodologically rigorous—failed to keep up with a rapidly shifting postvaccine and postvariant immune landscape.
CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal published a clinical update in Infectious Disease on 09 Apr 2026.
The item focuses on Acute Febrile Illness Surveillance for Estimating Population Immunity, Dominican Republic, 2021.
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