Surveillance tools for meningitis sentinel hospital surveillance: field guide to rapidly estimate the hospital catchment population (denominator) and the annual rate of hospitalisations

The document provides information for

Ministries of Health and hospital sentinel sites on why and how to

determine the denominator of at-risk children <5 years of age

and rate of meningitis hospitalizations for a sentinel hospital

site conducting IB-VPD surveillance. Such a methodology was

previously unavailable and this estimation is critical to enable

interpretation of surveillance data, particularly pre- and post-

vaccine introduction.