Abstract
Background and Purpose: We aimed to evaluate the demographic features, clinical manifestations, course of disease, and outcome of children with Influenza and Influenza complications. Methods: In the winter season -just before the COVID 19 outbreak- between October 2019 and March 2020, the cases with Influenza diagnosed by rt-PCR (real time polymerase chain reaction) requiring hospitalization retrospectively were evaluated with hospital records. Results: A total 36 children were hospitalized with Influenza virus infection. The most frequent presentations of the subjects were malaise and fever. Other clinical presentations consisted of vomitting (36.1%), abdominal pain (30.5%), myalgia (27.7%), diarrhea (25%), dry cough (19.4%), and arthralgia (11.1%). There were respiratory distress in 19 patients (52.7%) in our cohort. The most frequent underlying disease requiring hospitalization was neurological diseases. Conclusions and Recommendation: The Influenza infection was associated with a wide variety of clinical findings during the hospital admission in pediatric patients. Immunization programs for Influenza should be considered for all children aged > 6 months, and should be also targeted the pediatric population that likely to be hospitalized with predisposing medical conditions- particularly neurological- every influenza season. Encouraging the use of Influenza vaccines will provide a decrease in Influenza that have similar presentations of COVID-19.
Highlights
Influenza is an acute respiratory tract disease caused by Influenza viruses A and B (Inf A and B), and is generally responsible for outbreaks and epidemics worldwide in the winter seasons
Patients: During the winter season between October 2019-March 2020, a total of 440 patients have been hospitalized for any disease at General Pediatrics Unit
It has been reported that age could be a significant differential factor by Livia Mancinelli et al [8]; when they analyzed the virus Inf A was more common in children less than 12 months, and Inf B was more prevalent in school-age
Summary
Influenza (flu) is an acute respiratory tract disease caused by Influenza viruses A and B (Inf A and B), and is generally responsible for outbreaks and epidemics worldwide in the winter seasons. There have been many reports mentioning the association between flu and morbidity/mortality, especially in children, the elderly, pregnant women, health workers, and those with serious medical conditions. Despite the fact that the Influenza infections generally cause an uncomplicated disease, some pediatric patients might become severely ill, to the point of hospitalization or even death; having a neurological condition, immunosuppression, an abnormal chest radiograph, and moderate persistent asthma [3, 4]. We aimed to evaluate the demographic features, clinical manifestations, course of disease, and outcome of children with Influenza and Influenza complications
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