The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, the National Institute of Health in Italy) has had and continues to play a central role in addressing vaccine-preventable diseases. Among the various activities, most notable are: those related to influenza, which include activities from the National centre for influenza, epidemiological and virologic surveillance, as well as studies on the virulence and efficacy of vaccines, on the mechanisms of interspecies transmission of avian viruses, and on MERS-CoV coronavirus infections; and measles (activities from the National Centre to the WHO Centre, to the MoRoNet network, to epidemiological and virologic surveillance for the elimination of measles and congenital rubella); activities concerning the National Polio Centre and other enteroviruses (in particular those carried out by the Regional reference center and WHO Collaborating Centre for reference and research on poliomyelitis, which supervises a number of countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Malta, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece), and which conducts environmental surveillance of circulating polioviruses.
Lastly, we recall the activities carried out by the National centre for invasive bacterial diseases preventable by vaccine (national surveillance of meningococcus, pneumococcus and hemophile) and the National centre for pertussis.
