A severe influenza season in Austria and its impact on the paediatric population: mortality and hospital admission rates, november 2017 - march 2018.

Background: In Austria paediatric influenza-associated hospitalisations and deaths have never been systematically monitored. We examined the influenza season 2017/18 in terms of hospitalisation and mortality in the Austrian paediatric population and put the results into perspective of the available data from the last 15 years.

Methods: Cases of influenza-associated hospitalisations and deaths for season 2017/18 in children below 18 years were retrospectively collected from 12 and 33 Austrian hospitals, respectively.