The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID (a part of the National Institutes of Health, NIH) has designated St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as one of six Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance.

NIAID will award $23 million per year for seven years to establish the said centers in order to expand NIAID's influenza surveillance program in the United States and internationally and to help the federal government prepare for and respond to seasonal influenza as well as outbreaks of animal influenza that might cause pandemics, or worldwide epidemics, in humans.

The establishment of the Centers of Excellence is an extension of the work already done by St. Jude under a contract NIAID awarded to the institution in 1999 (two years after the 1997 outbreak of H5N1 in Hong Kong). Both surveillance of influenza viruses and basic research will be performed by St. Jude under the new contract.

The other five Centers of Excellence are: University of California at Los Angeles, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Emory University, Atlanta, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York and the University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.

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