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Article History

Received: 3 March 2020

Accepted: 17 June 2020

First Online: 2 July 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: The core protocol used by the GIHSN was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (Medical) of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; the Ethical Committee of the Hospital Na Bulovce, Czech Republic; the Local Ethics Committee at the Federal State Budget Institution “Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza” of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation; CEIC Direccion General de Salud Publica/Centro Superior de Investigación en Salud Pública of FISABIO, Spain; KEMRI Scientific and Ethics Review Unit of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya; The local Ethic Committee of Hospital #1 for Infectious Diseases of Moscow Health Department of the Federal State Budgetary Healthcare Institution Hospital #1 for Infectious Diseases of the Moscow Health Department, Moscow, Russia; the Research Ethics Board of the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Canada; the Bioethics Committee of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases “Prof. Dr. Matei Bals”, Bucharest, Romania; the Ethical committee of the Institute of Public Health Vojvodina, Serbia; the Institute Ethics Committee of the Sher-i Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, India; Comité de Ética en Investigación and the Comité de Investigacion Institucional, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico; Comité de Protection des Personnes (CPP) Ile de France IV, Hôpital Saint-Louis, France; Comité de bioética del Hospital Dr. Alejandro Posadas, Argentina; and the Fudan University School of Public Health Institution Review Board, China.All participants or their legal representatives provided written informed consent.Administrative permissions were not required to access the raw data from GIHSN.

: Not applicable.

: J.P. received research funds from the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology for work related to this study and unrestricted research grants for work unrelated to the current study from Sanofi Pasteur (which provides financial support for the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology). P.V. and M.N. received research funds from the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology for work related to this study and personal fees from Sanofi Pasteur for work unrelated to the current study. M.K.A. and S.A.M. received research funds from the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology for work related to this study and grants and personal fees from Sanofi Pasteur for work unrelated to the current study. J.K. received research funds from the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology for work related to this study. A.G. was an employee of OpenHealth, which is paid by the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology for work related to this study. All other authors declare no conflicts of interest.