Influenza News

Despite a decrease in influenza activity in the United States, the number of outpatient visits and deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza remain high, according to a recent report prepared by CDC’s Influenza Division.

The way in which the childhood influenza vaccine is perceived has a strong connection with uptake, intended uptake and opinion of side effects, according to a recent study published in Vaccine.

In Australia, patients who were vaccinated against influenza during the current and previous season were less likely to develop severe illnesses requiring hospitalization compared with patients who were vaccinated during only a single season, according to recent study findings.

The CDC estimates that in recent years, seasonal influenza has killed between 12,000 (2011-2012 season) and 56,000 (2012-2013 season) people in the United States annually. In the current influenza season, influenza activity in the U.S. has reached epidemic proportions. “Influenza leads to a quarter of a million ER visits every year,” Frank LoVecchio, DO, MPH, FACEP, vice chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Maricopa Medical Center, told Infectious Disease News. “People say it’s ‘just the flu,’ but it’s hard to find any disease that is costlier to our society.”

Newborns exposed to neuraminidase inhibitors during pregnancy did not have an increased risk for adverse outcomes or congenital malformations, according to the results of a large population-based, multinational observational cohort study.

The AAP has issued an updated policy statement about changes to this year’s childhood and adolescent immunization schedule made by the CDC, which includes the removal of references to the live-attenuated influenza vaccine.

New interim estimates indicate that the influenza vaccine is 48% effective in the United States. Meanwhile, influenza activity remains elevated in many parts of the country, and the number of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza continue to be higher than the epidemic threshold, according to a pair of CDC reports.

The mortality rate for pneumonia and influenza in the United States was slightly above the epidemic threshold during the week ending Jan. 7, according to CDC’s FluView.

An age-stratified static model showed that if the quadrivalent influenza vaccine was used instead of the trivalent vaccine, dozens of influenza cases, general practitioner consultations and lost working days per 100,000 person-years would have been avoided, and thousands of dollars would have been saved for three Latin American countries, according to a study published in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics.

A large community hospital in Toronto failed to diagnose one in six patients with influenza until they had exposed other patients and health care workers for more than 24 hours, according to study results published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.