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Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study
BACKGROUND: Varicella accounts for significant morbidities and remains a public health issue worldwide. Climatic factors have been shown to associate with the incidence and transmission of various infectious diseases. We describe the epidemiology of varicella in paediatric patients hospitalized at a...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3119164/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605371 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-366 |
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author | Chan, Johnny YC Tian, Linwei Kwan, YW Chan, WM Leung, CW |
author_facet | Chan, Johnny YC Tian, Linwei Kwan, YW Chan, WM Leung, CW |
author_sort | Chan, Johnny YC |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Varicella accounts for significant morbidities and remains a public health issue worldwide. Climatic factors have been shown to associate with the incidence and transmission of various infectious diseases. We describe the epidemiology of varicella in paediatric patients hospitalized at a tertiary referral hospital in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2008, and to explore the possible association between the occurrence of varicella infection and various climatic factors. METHODS: The hospital discharge database of Princess Margaret Hospital was retrospectively analyzed for admissions associated with varicella from 2004 to 2008. Meteorological data were obtained from the monthly meteorological reports from the Hong Kong Observatory website. Time series analysis was performed with Poisson regression using a Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) approach. RESULTS: During the study period, 598 children were hospitalized for varicella. The mean age on admission was 57.6 months, and the mean duration of hospitalization was 3.7 days. The overall complication rate was 47%. The mean monthly relative humidity, especially in cool seasons, was inversely correlated with the monthly varicella cases of the same month. CONCLUSIONS: Varicella can lead to serious complications and prolonged hospitalization, even in previously healthy children. Lower relative humidity in cool seasons is associated with higher number of paediatric varicella hospital admissions. These findings are useful for a better understanding of the pattern of paediatric varicella hospitalization in Hong Kong. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3119164 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31191642011-06-22 Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study Chan, Johnny YC Tian, Linwei Kwan, YW Chan, WM Leung, CW BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Varicella accounts for significant morbidities and remains a public health issue worldwide. Climatic factors have been shown to associate with the incidence and transmission of various infectious diseases. We describe the epidemiology of varicella in paediatric patients hospitalized at a tertiary referral hospital in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2008, and to explore the possible association between the occurrence of varicella infection and various climatic factors. METHODS: The hospital discharge database of Princess Margaret Hospital was retrospectively analyzed for admissions associated with varicella from 2004 to 2008. Meteorological data were obtained from the monthly meteorological reports from the Hong Kong Observatory website. Time series analysis was performed with Poisson regression using a Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) approach. RESULTS: During the study period, 598 children were hospitalized for varicella. The mean age on admission was 57.6 months, and the mean duration of hospitalization was 3.7 days. The overall complication rate was 47%. The mean monthly relative humidity, especially in cool seasons, was inversely correlated with the monthly varicella cases of the same month. CONCLUSIONS: Varicella can lead to serious complications and prolonged hospitalization, even in previously healthy children. Lower relative humidity in cool seasons is associated with higher number of paediatric varicella hospital admissions. These findings are useful for a better understanding of the pattern of paediatric varicella hospitalization in Hong Kong. BioMed Central 2011-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3119164/ /pubmed/21605371 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-366 Text en Copyright ©2011 Chan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Chan, Johnny YC Tian, Linwei Kwan, YW Chan, WM Leung, CW Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title | Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title_full | Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title_fullStr | Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title_full_unstemmed | Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title_short | Hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in Hong Kong, 2004 to 2008: A time series study |
title_sort | hospitalizations for varicella in children and adolescents in a referral hospital in hong kong, 2004 to 2008: a time series study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3119164/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605371 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-366 |
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