Case series of rash associated with influenza B in school children.

This case series describes morbilliform and other rash presentations among schoolchildren during a March 2014 outbreak of influenza-like illness (ILI) in British Columbia, Canada. Multiplex nucleic acid testing of nasopharyngeal specimens and paired serologic investigations identified that influenza B, characterized as B/Massachusetts/02/2012-like (Yamagata-lineage), was the only viral aetiology and most likely cause of ILI and rash. An association between influenza B and rash has been described infrequently elsewhere, and not previously in North America.

Transmission dynamics and risk factors for pandemic H1N1-related illness: outbreak investigation in a rural community of British Columbia, Canada.

Objective: To characterize the first-wave epidemiologic features of influenza-like illness (ILI) associated with the novel pandemic A/H1N1 [A(H1N1)pdm09] virus.

Methods: We used generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) to assess risk factors and non-parametric and/or parametric distributions to estimate attack rates, secondary attack rates (SAR), duration of illness, and serial interval during a laboratory-confirmed community outbreak of A(H1N1)pdm09 clustered around on-reserve residents and households of an elementary school in rural British Columbia, Canada, in late April/early May 2009. ILI details were collected as part of outbreak investigation by community telephone survey in early June 2009.

Seasonal influenza vaccine and increased risk of pandemic A/H1N1‐related illness: first detection of the association in British Columbia, Canada.

Background: In April 2009, an elementary school outbreak of pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) influenza was reported in a community in northern British Columbia, Canada--an area that includes both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal residents living on or off a reserve. During the outbreak investigation, we explored the relationship between prior receipt of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (TIV) and pH1N1-related illness.

Methods: A telephone survey was conducted from 15 May through 5 June 2009 among households of children attending any school in the affected community.

Seroprevalence of West Nile virus in Saskatchewan's Five Hills Health Region, 2003.

Background: The Five Hills Health Region of Saskatchewan reported the highest West Nile virus (WNV) case rates in the 2003 outbreak. A serologic and telephone survey was undertaken to assess the seroprevalence of the virus and the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of the residents.

Methods: Respondents had to be at least 18 years of age, and residents of the Five Hills Health Region between July 1st and September 15th, 2003.

A model for non-communicable disease surveillance in Canada: the prairie pilot diabetes surveillance system.

The Prairie Pilot Diabetes Surveillance Project was organized to design and test a prototype population-based surveillance system, using administrative data, for a chronic disease exemplar - diabetes mellitus. The Canadian model of a public health surveillance system for chronic conditions described here specifies a process by which administrative and claims data arising from provincial health insurance programs are merged into an annual person-level summary file (APLSF), yielding one summary record for each person insured within each province. The APLSF is the basis for a variety of estimates, including incidence, prevalence, mortality, complication rates and health services utilization.