Exploring early pre-symptomatic detection of influenza using continuous monitoring of advanced physiological parameters during a randomized controlled trial

Early detection of influenza may improve responses against outbreaks. This study was part of a clinical study assessing the efficacy of a novel influenza vaccine, aiming to discover distinct, highly predictive patterns of pre-symptomatic illness based on changes in advanced physiological parameters using a novel wearable sensor. Participants were frequently monitored 24 h before and for nine days after the influenza challenge. Viral load was measured daily, and self-reported symptoms were collected twice a day. The Random Forest classifier model was used to classify the participants based on changes in the measured parameters. A total of 116 participants with ~3,400,000 data points were included. Changes in parameters were detected at an early stage of the disease, before the development of symptomatic illness. Heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, and systemic vascular resistance showed the greatest changes in the third post-exposure day, correlating with viral load. Applying the classifier model identified participants as flu-positive or negative with an accuracy of 0.81 ± 0.05 two days before major symptoms appeared. Cardiac index and diastolic blood pressure were the leading predicting factors when using data from the first and second day. This study suggests that frequent remote monitoring of advanced physiological parameters may provide early pre-symptomatic detection of flu.