Potential impact of influenza A/H1N1 pandemic and hand-gels on acute diarrhea epidemic in France.
<h4>Background</h4>The 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic has received a great deal of attention from public health authorities. Our study examines whether this pandemic and the resulting public health measures could have impacted acute diarrhea, a prevalent, highly transmissible and histori...
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN |
| Publicado: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2013
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/fa07f732d78c42989adbd55ab5cbacd5 |
| Etiquetas: |
Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
|
| Sumario: | <h4>Background</h4>The 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic has received a great deal of attention from public health authorities. Our study examines whether this pandemic and the resulting public health measures could have impacted acute diarrhea, a prevalent, highly transmissible and historically monitored disease.<h4>Methods</h4>Using augmentation procedures of national data for the previous five years (2004-2009), we estimated the expected timing and incidence of acute diarrhea in France in 2009-2010 and evaluated differences with the observed. We also reviewed national hand gels for the same period.<h4>Findings</h4>Number of episodes of acute diarrhea in France in 2009-2010 was significantly lower than expected until the third week of December (-24%, 95% CI [-36%; -9%]), then significantly higher (+40%, 95% CI [22%; 62%]), leading to a surplus of 574,440 episodes. The epidemic was delayed by 5 weeks with a peak 1.3 times higher than expected. Hand-gels sales inversely correlated with incidence of both influenza-like illness and acute diarrheal disease. Among individuals >65 yo, no excess cases of influenza and no excess rebound in acute diarrhea were observed, despite similar delay in the onset of the seasonal diarrheal epidemic.<h4>Interpretation</h4>Our results suggest that at least one endemic disease had an unexpected behavior in 2009-2010. Acute diarrhea seems to have been controlled during the beginning of the pandemic in all age groups, but later peaked higher than expected in the younger population. The all-age delay in seasonal onset seems partly attributable to hand-gels use, while the differential magnitude of the seasonal epidemic between young and old, concurrent for both influenza and acute diarrhea, is compatible with disease interaction. |
|---|