11 Nov Study examines global burden of respiratory infections from seasonal influenza in young children
Ahead of World Pneumonia Day, the first study to provide global estimates of seasonal influenza in children aged under five years and the resultant burden of influenza-related pneumonia is published Online First by The Lancet. The study estimates that, globally, around 90 million children contract seasonal flu each year, causing around 1 million hospital admissions and as many as 111500 deaths due to influenza-related pneumonia-with 99% of these deaths in developing countries. The Article is by Dr Harish Nair, Centre for Population
Health Sciences, Medical School, The University of Edinburgh, UK, and colleagues worldwide.
Recent estimates of global pneumonia incidence and mortality associated with Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) do not fully explain the pediatric pneumonia burden, and so the role of other pathogens needs to be
explored. These include influenza virus, which is associated with a large but unknown number of hospital admissions in young children
globally and is vaccine preventable. Many data for incidence and mortality from influenza-associated pneumonia in developing countries
remain unpublished. Therefore, the authors formed an international Influenza Study Group to supplement their systematic literature review
(containing published data from high-income and developing countries) with available unpublished data.
Read the full study at The Lancet.