PHIMS is a secure, integrated electronic public health record designed to assist public health practitioners in Manitoba with management of:
PHIMS provides authorized health-care professionals in Manitoba with the ability to collect, share and analyze a wide range of health information at the regional and provincial levels. Data from PHIMS are used in a range of public reports.
The PHIMS database is refreshed daily at 1:00am.
The baseline population of Manitoba is 1,399,093 as of June 1, 2021. More details can be found in the Population Report.
Only laboratory confirmed influenza cases are included. Detections of influenza nucleic acid detection, culture isolation, and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) are reported from Cadham Provincial Laboratory (CPL) and occasionally other laboratories. These reports are forwarded to Epidemiology and Surveillance (E&S) within 24 hours of confirmation. CPL also performs testing for other respiratory viruses including parainfluenza, RSV, adenovirus, rhinovirus, coronavirus, enterovirus, and bocavirus, which are reported to E&S on a weekly basis.
Hospitalizations, ICU submissions, and deaths in hospitals in influenza cases are extracted from the provincial data system, Admission, Discharge and Transmission. Deaths that occurred outside of hospitals are reported by the Public Health Office in each Regional Health Authority (RHA). The reason for the hospitalizations, ICU admissions or the cause of deaths does not have to be attributable to influenza. Instead, a temporal association with a positive influenza laboratory result is sufficient due to the requirement for timely reporting. Submissions are cleaned by E&S to remove duplicate submissions for the same patient within the same illness episode. In this report, only Manitoba residents are included.
Outbreaks are reported to the Epidemiology and Surveillance (E&S) unit via phone call or email from regional public health staff, or by Cadham Provincial Laboratory (CPL) advising the assignment of an outbreak code. CPL submits both positive and negative laboratory results related to outbreaks to E&S. Details related to outbreak investigations are reported from Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) to E&S by completing an outbreak summary report.
Respiratory OutbreakAs per the World Health Organization (WHO), all seasonal quadrivalent influenza vaccines that have egg-based or recombinant manufacturing processes, for the 2021-22 season in the northern hemisphere contain:
The decision to include specific flu vaccines as part of Manitoba's Seasonal Influenza Immunization Program depends on a multitude of factors. For the 2021-22 season, Manitoba Health and Seniors Care (MHSC) will offer the following flu vaccines as part of its annual Seasonal Influenza Immunization Program (product composition to be confirmed following national allotment finalization):
FluWatch is an important part of Canada's national influenza surveillance program. It relies on an online health surveillance system that helps track the spread of influenza and influenza-like illness in the community across Canada. FluWatchers are volunteers from all over Canada. Each week, FluWatchers get an e-mail asking if they had a cough or fever in the previous week. Additional questions may be asked if participants reported ILI symptoms. Answers are anonymous.
Manitoba data are included in this report.
More volunteers are needed across Canada to help track the spread of influenza and COVID-19. Please consider signing up to be a FluWatcher.
Manitoba participates in FluWatch, Canada's national surveillance system coordinated by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which monitors the spread of influenza and ILI on a year-round basis. FluWatch consists of a network of laboratories, hospitals, physician clinics and provincial and territorial ministries of health. In 2019-2020, there were 19 sentinel physicians recruited throughout Manitoba reporting to FluWatch weekly. The Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit receives weekly reports from FluWatch, which describe the ILI rate for Manitoba and for each participating sentinel physician. The reporting sentinel physicians vary by week, and their reports may not be representative of ILI activity across the province.
The units of antiviral drugs, Oseltamivir and Zanamivor, dispensed from community retail pharmacies to Manitoba residents are reported to E&S from Drug Programs Information Network (DPIN) on a weekly basis. Antiviral drugs dispensed to in-patients or through nursing stations could not be included in this report due to lack of data.
Immunization data were extracted from PHIMS. The report includes clients who have received one or more valid doses of the influenza vaccine and who have active registration with Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living (MHSAL) at the time that the report is generated (i.e. it is not based on the number of doses in the registry divided by the population of Manitoba). This report coverage does not include the following:
Daily statistics of visits to Emergency Departments (ED) in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) including all visits and those related to respiratory illness are submitted to the Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit weekly. Respiratory visits are defined as patients whose triage chief complaints contain one or more of these symptoms: weakness, shortness of breath, cough, headache, fever, cardiac/respiratory arrest, sore throat, and upper respiratory tract infection complaints.