This paper and review from a Singapore-based group compared results obtained for estimating rates of new infections during the 2009 pandemic. They derived rates from paired specimens from the same patient (serum cohort approach), cross-sectional serological surveys, rates of unconfirmed syndromic influenza-like-illness (ILI) obtained from primary care physicians in sentinel general practices, and combined clinical repos with laboratory confirmed samples.
This paper serves as a gateway review of several field and epidemiological investigations conducted across the United States (US) which have been compiled as a special supplement in a January 2011 number of the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.
While there have been some early descriptive reports of school outbreaks, for example a number published in Eurosurveillance from France and the UK this study is unusual in combining modelling, social network theory and ‘shoe-leather epidemiology’.
Details of two innovative initiatives designed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to increase awareness of influenza and seasonal influenza were recently published on the CDC website.