As shown in Figure 7 , our algorithm, retrospectively, detects the 2008-09 pandemic outbreak 12 weeks (i.e., The performances of the three methods compared in terms of sensitivity (Sen) and median detection time (MDT) for different values of pandemic case reporting rates and detection specificities of 95% and 99%. Sen is given as percentage (%) of the model runs summed across all 33 weeks, i.e. calculated from a set of 1800 overlaid time series times 33 weeks. MDT is in weeks and calculated from those of (1800 × 33) runs in which a given method was able to generate a detection alarm.