Residual Samples for the Detection of Novel Pathogens

Participating Sites and National Principal Investigator

Dr. Shelly Bolotin

British Columbia
BC Children’s Hospital (Vancouver)

Alberta
Alberta Children’s Hospital (Calgary)
Stollery Children’s Hospital (Edmonton)

Saskatchewan
Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital (Saskatoon)

Manitoba
The Children’s Hospital of Winnipeg (Winnipeg)

Ontario
Children's Hospital London Health Sciences Centre (London)
McMaster Children’s Hospital (Hamilton)
The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa)
Kingston Health Sciences Centre (Kingston)

Quebec
CHU Sainte-Justine (Montreal)
Montreal Children’s Hospital
CHU de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke)
CHU de Quebec l‘Universite de Laval (Quebec City)

Nova Scotia
IWK Health Centre (Halifax)

Newfoundland
Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre (St. John’s)

What Do We Want To Know?

Determine infection rates in children and pregnant people for flu-like diseases.
Find out the proportion of children and pregnant people with exposure and immunity to flu-like diseases.
How to establish a structure that will allow ongoing use of residual samples from children and pregnant people with flu-like illnesses for new disease discovery.

How Are We Doing It?

When children or pregnant people visit the emergency department or obstetrics ward or are admitted to the hospital for any reason and have routine serum samples taken, we may use their leftover samples to run tests. Nasopharyngeal (nose/throat) leftover samples may also be harvested from people admitted with severe flu-like illnesses. Samples will be taken from people spread between predefined age groups of children and pregnant people.

How Is The Study Going?

This study will start in 2025!

Who Is Included?

Children aged 0-17 years old or pregnant people who come to the emergency department or obstetrics ward or are admitted to the hospital and have routine samples taken may be included in this study.