Use of cumulative incidence of novel influenza A/H1N1 in foreign travelers to estimate lower bounds on cumulative incidence in Mexico.

Background: An accurate estimate of the total number of cases and severity of illness of an emerging infectious disease is required both to define the burden of the epidemic and to determine the severity of disease. When a novel pathogen first appears, affected individuals with severe symptoms are more likely to be diagnosed. Accordingly, the total number of cases will be underestimated and disease severity overestimated.

Household responses to school closure resulting from outbreak of influenza B, North Carolina.

School closure is a proposed strategy for reducing influenza transmission during a pandemic. Few studies have assessed how families respond to closures, or whether other interactions during closure could reduce this strategy's effect. Questionnaires were administered to 220 households (438 adults and 355 children) with school-age children in a North Carolina county during an influenza B virus outbreak that resulted in school closure.