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Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?

There is accumulating evidence suggesting that children may drive the spread of influenza epidemics. The objective of this study was to quantify the lead time by age using laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza A for the 1995/1996–2005/2006 seasons from Canadian communities and laboratory-confirmed...

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Autores principales: Schanzer, Dena, Vachon, Julie, Pelletier, Louise
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3119537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21602300
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwr037
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author Schanzer, Dena
Vachon, Julie
Pelletier, Louise
author_facet Schanzer, Dena
Vachon, Julie
Pelletier, Louise
author_sort Schanzer, Dena
collection PubMed
description There is accumulating evidence suggesting that children may drive the spread of influenza epidemics. The objective of this study was to quantify the lead time by age using laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza A for the 1995/1996–2005/2006 seasons from Canadian communities and laboratory-confirmed hospital admissions for the H1N1/2009 pandemic strain. With alignment of the epidemic curves locally before aggregation of cases, slight age-specific differences in the timing of infection became apparent. For seasonal influenza, both the 10–19- and 20–29-year age groups peaked 1 week earlier than other age groups, while during the fall wave of the 2009 pandemic, infections peaked earlier among only the 10–19-year age group. In the H3N2 seasons, infections occurred an average of 3.9 (95% confidence interval: 1.7, 6.1) days earlier in the 20–29-year age group than for youth aged 10–19 years, while during the fall pandemic wave, the 10–19-year age group had a statistically significant lead of 3 days compared with both younger children aged 4–9 years and adults aged 20–29 years (P < 0.0001). This analysis casts doubt on the hypothesis that younger school-age children actually lead influenza epidemic waves.
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spelling pubmed-31195372011-06-21 Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics? Schanzer, Dena Vachon, Julie Pelletier, Louise Am J Epidemiol Practice of Epidemiology There is accumulating evidence suggesting that children may drive the spread of influenza epidemics. The objective of this study was to quantify the lead time by age using laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza A for the 1995/1996–2005/2006 seasons from Canadian communities and laboratory-confirmed hospital admissions for the H1N1/2009 pandemic strain. With alignment of the epidemic curves locally before aggregation of cases, slight age-specific differences in the timing of infection became apparent. For seasonal influenza, both the 10–19- and 20–29-year age groups peaked 1 week earlier than other age groups, while during the fall wave of the 2009 pandemic, infections peaked earlier among only the 10–19-year age group. In the H3N2 seasons, infections occurred an average of 3.9 (95% confidence interval: 1.7, 6.1) days earlier in the 20–29-year age group than for youth aged 10–19 years, while during the fall pandemic wave, the 10–19-year age group had a statistically significant lead of 3 days compared with both younger children aged 4–9 years and adults aged 20–29 years (P < 0.0001). This analysis casts doubt on the hypothesis that younger school-age children actually lead influenza epidemic waves. Oxford University Press 2011-07-01 2011-05-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3119537/ /pubmed/21602300 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwr037 Text en © Crown copyright 2011. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Practice of Epidemiology
Schanzer, Dena
Vachon, Julie
Pelletier, Louise
Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title_full Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title_fullStr Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title_full_unstemmed Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title_short Age-specific Differences in Influenza A Epidemic Curves: Do Children Drive the Spread of Influenza Epidemics?
title_sort age-specific differences in influenza a epidemic curves: do children drive the spread of influenza epidemics?
topic Practice of Epidemiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3119537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21602300
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwr037
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