Changes in surveillance of acute respiratory infections including influenza in the Slovak Republic during 1993-2008.

The authors evaluated surveillance of acute respiratory infections (ARI), influenza and influenza-like illnesses (ILI) in the Slovak Republic (SR). They analyze morbidity, age-specific morbidity, complications, mortality, number of influenza viruses isolations and vaccination coverage rates in the SR in the years 1993-2008. They focus mainly on the analysis during the epidemic. Most epidemics have been caused by influenza virus A subtype H3N2. The age group mostly affected by morbidity during the year were children at the age of 0-5, while during the epidemic, the highest morbidity was recorded among school children at the age of 6-14. A complicated clinical course of the disease was reported in 1,422,836 patients (5.1%). Since the 2002/2003 influenza season, the sentinel physicians have participated in taking biological material, which ensures monitoring of influenza viruses circulating in the SR. As of the 2006/2007 season, the ARI/ILI have been reported separately in the SR in accordance with the monitoring requirements set by the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme (EISS) project, and the calculation of morbidity is done from the number of persons, who are in care of the reporting physicians: Vaccination coverage in SR is still very low in comparison with other European Union (EU) countries.