The Department of Defense Global Respiratory Pathogen Surveillance Program: its impact on public health, from the U.S. Armed Forces to global health.

The U.S. Department of Defense Global Respiratory Pathogen Surveillance Program (DoDGRPSP) has supported the prevention of respiratory illness in the U.S. Armed Forces since 1976, supported by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (AFHSD-GEIS) branch of the Defense Health Agency (DHA) since 1997. DoDGRPSP utilizes a global network of sentinel sites and partner laboratories to collect respiratory surveillance data and share its findings with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and installation stakeholders. Several significant findings have resulted from the program in the last decade, including novel influenza detections, outbreak characterizations, and early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. The program collaborates with other DOD and government entities to inform public health decisions, including vaccine effectiveness estimates, phylogenetic analyses, and antigenic characterizations to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to aid selection of influenza strains for subsequent U.S. vaccines. DoDGRPSP adapts to changes in emerging pathogens, evolution of known pathogens, advancements in respiratory pathogen testing assays and instruments, new analytical methods, and new sequencing technologies. The program continues to provide continuous respiratory pathogen surveillance data, vaccine effectiveness estimates, and sequence data analyses in reports and peer-reviewed publications to DOD, government, and global partners.