# Surveillance of International Travel of COVID‐19 Cases (SuITCases) in England

## TL;DR

The paper introduces a new system to track travel-related COVID-19 cases in England, helping reduce transmission and improve public health responses.

## Contribution

The novel SuITCases system integrates multiple data sources to assign travel status to COVID-19 cases.

## Key findings

- SuITCases identified 517,988 travel-associated SARS-CoV-2 episodes, or 3.0% of total cases.
- Enhanced data systems were most effective in assigning travel status.
- The system enabled rapid identification of cases, aiding outbreak response and pandemic preparedness.

## Abstract

The emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2 variants necessitated identification of travel‐associated COVID‐19 cases in England.

We implemented a novel integrated COVID‐19‐episode‐level travel surveillance system, Surveillance of International COVID‐19 Cases (SuITCases), to assign imported, sporadic or unknown travel status to COVID‐19 cases, using data linkage between two enhanced and two routine data sources.

SuITCases identified 517,988 travel‐associated SARS‐CoV‐2 episodes (3.0% of total), where the two enhanced systems assigned most travel statuses.

Our unique system facilitated rapid identification of travel‐associated COVID‐19 cases, reducing transmission and informing public health actions. Enhanced surveillance data sources should be considered as potential tools for future outbreak investigations and pandemic preparedness.