BACKGROUND Over the last decade, capacity for influenza surveillance and research in West Africa has strengthened. Data from these surveillance systems showed influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 circulated in West Africa later than in other regions of the continent. METHODS We contacted 11 West African countries to collect information about their influenza surveillance systems (number of sites, type of su...

BACKGROUND Refugees are at risk for poor outcomes from acute respiratory infections (ARI) because of overcrowding, suboptimal living conditions, and malnutrition. We implemented surveillance for respiratory viruses in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya to characterize their role in the epidemiology of ARI among refugees. METHODS From 1 September 2007 through 31 August 2010, we obtained ...

Zohreh Shahhosseini, Zeinab Hamzeh Gardeshi, Maryam Hajizadeh Valukolaee, Fereshteh Yazdani Khermandichali. Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Nasibeh Nursing and Midwifery Faculty, Sari, Iran; Master Student of Midwifery counseling, Research student Committee, Mazandaran University of Medical Science, Nasibeh Nursing and Midwifery Facult...

BACKGROUND Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza A viruses are known to cause severe acute respiratory tract infections (SARIs) in children. For other viruses like human rhinoviruses (HRVs) this is less well established. Viral or bacterial co-infections are often considered essential for severe manifestations of these virus infections. OBJECTIVE The study aims at identifying viruses...

BACKGROUND Studies describing the epidemiology of influenza B lineages in South Africa are lacking. METHODS We conducted a prospective study to describe the circulation of influenza B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages among patients of all ages enrolled in South Africa through three respiratory illness surveillance systems between 2005 and 2014: (i) the Viral Watch (VW) program enrolled outpat...

Most of the geochemical datasets include missing data with different portions and this may cause a significant problem in geostatistical modeling or multivariate analysis of the data. Therefore, it is common to impute the missing data in most of geochemical studies. In this study, three approaches called half detection (HD), multiple imputation (MI), and the cosimulation based on Markov model 2...

BACKGROUND Better understanding the etiology-specific incidence of severe acute respiratory infections (SARIs) in resource-poor, rural settings will help further develop and prioritize prevention strategies. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a longitudinal study to estimate the incidence of SARIs among children in rural Bangladesh. METHODS During June through October 2010, we fol...

Background Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) is the leading global cause of morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. Since January 2009, a Sentinel Surveillance System for Severe Acute Respiratory Infections has been established based in a Northern Province of Vietnam (Hai Duong province). The purpose of this program is to describe the epidemiology and identify the viral etiol...