Incidence of Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza among HIV-Infected versus HIV-Uninfected Individuals in Two Districts of Ghana, 2014 to 2016

Influenza is known to cause severe respiratory illness in HIV-infected adults, but there are few data describing the relationship between HIV infection and influenza in West African countries such as Ghana. We conducted a prospective cohort study in the Shai-Osudoku and Ningo Prampram districts of Ghana from 2014 to 2016. Beginning May 2014, 266 HIV-infected and 510 HIV-uninfected participants age 18 to 73 years were enrolled and monitored for 12 months. We observed 4 and 11 laboratory-confirmed influenza cases among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected persons, respectively. The overall rate of laboratory-confirmed influenza among HIV-infected participants was 15.0 per 1,000 person years (PY) (95% CI, 0.3-29.80 per 1,000 PY), whereas that among HIV-uninfected participants was 21.6 per 1,000 PY (95% CI, 8.8-34.3 per 1,000 PY) (incidence density ratio, 0.70; P = 0.56). Our study found no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated illness among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected individuals in Ghana.

DETECTION OF NON-INFLUENZA VIRUSES IN ACUTE RESPIRATORY INFECTIONS IN CHILDREN UNDER FIVE-YEAR-OLD IN COTE D'IVOIRE (JANUARY - DECEMBER 2013)

BACKGROUND

Influenza sentinel surveillance in Cote d'Ivoire showed that 70% of Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) cases remained without etiology. This work aims to describe the epidemiological, clinical, and virological pattern of ARI that tested negative for influenza virus, in children under five years old.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

one thousand and fifty nine samples of patients presenting influenza Like Illness (ILI) or Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) symptoms were tested for other respiratory viruses using multiplex RT-PCR assays targeting 10 respiratory viruses.

RESULTS

The following pathogens were detected as follows, hRV 31,92% (98/307), hRSV 24.4% (75/329), PIV 20.5% (63/307), HCoV 229E 12,05% (37/307), hMPV 6.2% (19/307), HCoVOC43 1.0% (3/307) and EnV 1.0% (3/307). Among the 1,059 specimens analyzed, 917 (86.6%) were ILI samples and 142 (23.4%) were SARI samples. The proportion of children infected with at least one virus was 29.8% (273/917) in ILI cases and 23.9% (34/142) in SARI cases. The most prevalent viruses, responsible for ILI cases were hRV with 35.89% (98/273) and hRSV in SARI cases with 41.2% (14/34) of cases. Among the 1,059 patients, only 22 (2.1%) children presented risk factors related to the severity of influenza virus infection.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that respiratory viruses play an important role in the etiology of ARI in children. For a better understanding of the epidemiology of ARI and improved case management, it would be interesting in this context to expand the surveillance of influenza to other respiratory viruses.