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Peter Georgantopoulos, Eleanor Peters Bergquist, Richard C. Knaup, John R. Anthony, Thomas C. Bailey, Michael P. Williams, Steven J. Lawrence, Importance of Routine Public Health Influenza Surveillance: Detection of an Unusual W-Shaped Influenza Morbidity Curve, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 170, Issue 12, 15 December 2009, Pages 1533–1540, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwp305
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Abstract
Seasonal influenza causes excess morbidity and mortality at the extremes of age: It disproportionately affects the very young and the very old, typically resulting in “U”-shaped age-distributed curves. By means of a well-established public health department surveillance system using positive influenza tests submitted from sentinel sites, the authors generated annual influenza-specific morbidity curves over a 10-year period (1998–2008) for St. Louis County, Missouri. The authors detected an unusually high incidence of cases of medically attended test-positive influenza, particularly in young adults, during the 2007–2008 season, resulting in an unexpected “W”-shaped age-distributed morbidity curve that was distinctly unique in comparison with the prior 9 influenza seasons. Public health influenza surveillance programs are useful tools for detecting emerging epidemiologic trends that may have clinical importance.
