Activity of Influenza and Influenza-like Viruses in Individuals Aged over 14 in the 2015/2016 Influenza Season in Poland



Fig. 1
Confirmed cases of influenza viruses in persons over 14 years of age in the 2015/2016 influenza epidemic season in Poland



A442827_1_En_202_Fig2_HTML.gif


Fig. 2
Individual types and subtypes of influenza virus in persons over 14 years of age in the 2015/2016 influenza epidemic season in Poland


There also were confirmed cases of influenza B in individuals over 14 years of age. This was actually the dominant type of influenza virus in persons aged 15–25. However, the highest number of cases of influenza virus type B was found in the persons aged 26–44 (n = 201), far fewer in those aged 15–25 years (n = 95), 45–64 years (n = 85), and over 65 years (n = 89) (Fig. 2).

In the 2015/2016 influenza season, there were just 16 cases of influenza-like viruses reported, with RSV (n = 6), PIV-3 (n = 4), and ADV (n = 3) reported most frequently and with individual cases of PIV 1, hCoV and RhV A/B virues.



4 Discussion


The number of 3,864,731 cases and suspected cases of influenza and influenza-like viruses in the 2015/2016 influenza epidemic season in Poland was comparable to that present in the preceding season (NIPH-NIH 2015/2016). However, the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to complications increased dramatically. The number of deaths increased from 11 in 2014/2015 to 140 in 2015/2016 (Table 1).


Table 1
Epidemiological indicators of influenza and influenza-like infections (ILI) in the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 epidemic seasons in Poland according to NIPH-NIH (2016)
































Epidemic season

ILI cases (n)

Morbidity

Hospitalizations (n)

Deaths (n)

Specimens (n)

2014/2015

3,776,518

9,814,59

12,273

11

2416

2015/2016

3,864,731

10,054,65

15,312

140

8542

Despite a comparable number of cases and suspected cases of influenza and influenza-like viruses, the number of confirmed cases increased to 40.2% in 2015/2016 up from 21.2% in 2014/2015 (Bednarska et al. 2016). There also was a difference in the most frequent contagion between the two seasons, with subtype A/H1N1/pdm09 (62.6%) predominating in 2015/2016 as opposed to A/H3N2/ predominating the season before in persons over 14 years of age (Hallmann-Szelińska et al. 2016). The present study demonstrates that subtype A/H1N1/pdm09 predominated in all age groups, except for 15–24 years old persons in whom virus type B was dominant (Fig. 2). In both compared seasons, the highest incidence of influenza was reported in the age-groups of 45–64 and 26–44 years and the lowest one in the 15–24 years old persons (Fig. 1) (Bednarska et al. 2016b). Interestingly, the number of confirmed cases of influenza virus was the highest in the same age-groups of 45–64 and 26–44 years in the past 2013/2014 season (Bednarska et al. 2015). We also found that the activity of RSV and PIV-3 was increased in 2015/2016 compared with that in the season before (NIPH-NIH 2015/2016).

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Jul 30, 2017 | Posted by in RESPIRATORY | Comments Off on Activity of Influenza and Influenza-like Viruses in Individuals Aged over 14 in the 2015/2016 Influenza Season in Poland

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