ABSTRACT Introduction The emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2 variants necessitated identification of travel‐associated COVID‐19 cases in England. Methods 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. Results SuITCases identified 517,988 travel‐associated SARS‐CoV‐2 episodes (3.0% of total), where the two enhanced systems assigned most travel statuses. Conclusions 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.
Sinnathamby et al. (2025) studied this question.