​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​What is the Canadian SPSN?

Established in 2004 and headquartered at the BC Centre for Disease Control, the Canadian Sentinel Practitioner Surveillance Network (SPSN) provides community-based surveillance and vaccine effectiveness (VE) monitoring to inform rapid risk assessment and response to emerging or re-emerging respiratory pathogens.

The SPSN links primary care practitioners with epidemiologists, virologists and genome scientists with public health agencies, laboratories and academic centres across Canada's four largest provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec). The goal is to deliver timely surveillance and applied public health research to inform clinical practice, public health programs, and policy. Core activities include clinician-led specimen collection, multiplex respiratory pathogen testing, whole genome sequencing and antigenic characterization of circulating viruses in relation to vaccine, and reporting of virological and VE findings to the World Health Organization, supporting vaccine strain selection.

What does the BC SPSN do?

SPSN sites within BC are primary care providers able to obtain specimens and data to contribute to vaccine effectiveness (VE) evaluation and respiratory pathogen monitoring and​ characterization by epidemiologists and virologists at the BCCDC, the headquarters for the provincial and national Canadian SPSN.

Are you a general practitioner, family physician, or nurse practitioner treating patients in BC?

The SPSN is seeking participants! To find out more:

• SPSN poster (PDF)
• Complete our online recruitment form
• Email us directly at sentinelnetwork@bccdc.ca
• Phone us at 604-707-2517
  

What is vaccine effectiveness?

Vaccine effectiveness (VE) describes how well immunization protects against target diseases. It provides an estimate of how much the vaccine reduces the risk of medically attended infections. VE helps public health programs understand how vaccines are performing each season and supports decisions about the need to update vaccine strains to better match circulating viruses.

The SPSN has produced a number of scientific publications related to vaccine effectiveness evaluation and more (see below). Influenza vaccine ​effectiveness findings from the Canadian SPSN over the past 22 yearsCOVID-19 vaccine ​effectiveness findings from the Canadian SPSN over the past 3 years​​​​​​Full list of SPSN publications, 2004-2026​​​​​

SPSN Reports

2024-2025 Season

2023-2024 Season

CME Credits

​Participating sentinels in the SPSN are eligible to receive non-certified credits (1 hour is equivalent to 1 credit) by reading and reviewing SPSN reports and publications (e.g., linked above).

For further assistance, pleaes contact the Mainpro+ team at mainprocredits@cfpc.ca.

Updated: June 12, 2026​​​​​​