ArticleArchives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique2021
One year of laboratory-based COVID-19 surveillance system in Belgium: main indicators and performance of the laboratories (March 2020-21).
Article in Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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27 citing papers in PubMed.
- Improving public health laboratory preparedness at European Union level: learning points from experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2026Article
- Real-world comparative effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 primary vaccination campaigns against SARS-CoV-2 infections: a federated observational study emulating a target trial in three nations.European journal of public health · 2026Observational
- Estimating the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections by jointly modelling seroprevalence, hospitalization and mortality data, February 2020 - January 2021, Belgium.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- The role of vaccination, underlying health conditions, and working in healthcare in the socioeconomic disparities in COVID-19 hospitalization: a mediation analysis using interventional effect models.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Belgium's SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing effectively curbed transmission, yet challenges persist in terms of delays, scalability and population adherence.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Nationwide quality assurance of high-throughput diagnostic molecular testing during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: role of the Belgian National Reference Centre.Virology journal · 2024Review
- Personal characteristics and transmission dynamics associated with SARS-CoV-2 semi-quantitative PCR test results: an observational study from Belgium, 2021-2022.Frontiers in public health · 2024Observational
- KCL TEST: an open-source inspired asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 surveillance programme in an academic institution.Biology methods & protocols · 2024Article
- Translating the COVID-19 epidemiological situation into policies and measures: the Belgian experience.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Post COVID-19 condition and health-related quality of life: a longitudinal cohort study in the Belgian adult population.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Were SARS-CoV-2 self-tests used for their intended purpose? The experience in Belgium.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Social inequalities and long-term health impact of COVID-19 in Belgium: protocol of the HELICON population data linkage.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Article
- Comparing the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 across age groups considering sampling biases - use of testing data of autumn 2021 in Belgium.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2023Article
- A scoping review on laboratory surveillance in the WHO Southeast Asia Region: Past, present and the future.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Article
- Evaluating methodological approaches to assess the severity of infection with SARS-CoV-2 variants: scoping review and applications on Belgian COVID-19 data.BMC infectious diseases · 2022Article
- COVID-19 surveillance in the Flemish school system: development of systematic data collection within the public health school system and descriptive analysis of cases reported between October 2020 and June 2021.BMC public health · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance in Belgian Wastewaters.Viruses · 2022Article
- Nationwide Harmonization Effort for Semi-Quantitative Reporting of SARS-CoV-2 PCR Test Results in Belgium.Viruses · 2022Article
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20 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundWith the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an existing national laboratory-based surveillance system was adapted to daily monitor the epidemiological situation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the Belgium by following the number of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections, the number of performed tests and the positivity ratio. We present these main indicators of the surveillance over a one-year period as well as the impact of the performance of the laboratories, regarding speed of processing the samples and reporting results, for surveillance.
methodsWe describe the evolution of test capacity, testing strategy and the data collection methods during the first year of the epidemic in Belgium.
resultsBetween the 1
conclusionsThanks to the effort of all laboratories a performant exhaustive national laboratory-based surveillance system to monitor the epidemiological situation of SARS-CoV-2 was set up in Belgium in 2020. On top of expanding the number of laboratories performing diagnostics and significantly increasing the test capacity in Belgium, turnaround times between sampling and testing as well as reporting were optimized over the first year of this pandemic.
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