Pandemic influenza due to pH1N1/2009 virus: estimation of infection burden in Reunion Island through a prospective serosurvey, austral winter 2009. | LitMetric
Background: To date, there is little information that reflects the true extent of spread of the pH1N1/2009v influenza pandemic at the community level as infection often results in mild or no clinical symptoms. This study aimed at assessing through a prospective study, the attack rate of pH1N1/2009 virus in Reunion Island and risk factors of infection, during the 2009 season.
Methodology/principal Findings: A serosurvey was conducted during the 2009 austral winter, in the frame of a prospective population study. Pairs of sera were collected from 1687 individuals belonging to 772 households, during and after passage of the pandemic wave. Antibodies to pH1N1/2009v were titered using the hemagglutination inhibition assay (HIA) with titers ≥ 1/40 being considered positive. Seroprevalence during the first two weeks of detection of pH1N1/2009v in Reunion Island was 29.8% in people under 20 years of age, 35.6% in adults (20-59 years) and 73.3% in the elderly (≥ 60 years) (P<0.0001). Baseline corrected cumulative incidence rates, were 42.9%, 13.9% and 0% in these age groups respectively (P<0.0001). A significant decline in antibody titers occurred soon after the passage of the epidemic wave. Seroconversion rates to pH1N1/2009 correlated negatively with age: 63.2%, 39.4% and 16.7%, in each age group respectively (P<0.0001). Seroconversion occurred in 65.2% of individuals who were seronegative at inclusion compared to 6.8% in those who were initially seropositive.
Conclusions: Seroincidence of pH1N1/2009v infection was three times that estimated from clinical surveillance, indicating that almost two thirds of infections occurring at the community level have escaped medical detection. People under 20 years of age were the most affected group. Pre-epidemic titers ≥ 1/40 prevented seroconversion and are likely protective against infection. A concern was raised about the long term stability of the antibody responses.
Phytate in plants (inositol phosphates, InsPs) affects mineral bioavailability. However, methods for their quantification may lead to variable results, and some are nonspecific (spectrophotometric techniques). In this study, ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was coupled with post-column derivatization to allow fluorescence detection (FLD, λ324/λ364 nm) of InsPs.
CHRU de Brest, service de pédiatrie, Brest, France; Laboratoire de Traitement de l'Information Médicale INSERM U1101, Brest, France. Electronic address:
Background: Sedation is often required for pediatric medical imaging procedures to ensure compliance and image quality. Recommendations for pediatric sedation exist, but there are currently no guidelines for the choice of the sedative drug.
Objective: To compare the efficacy and adverse events of per os pentobarbital with intravenous chlorpromazine in children undergoing diagnostic imaging procedures.
Now that it has been realized that viruses are ubiquitous, questions have been raised on factors influencing their diversity and distribution. For phytoviruses, understanding the interplay between plant diversity and virus species richness and prevalence remains cardinal. As both the amplification and the dilution of viral species richness due to increasing host diversity have been theorized and observed, a deeper understanding of how plants and viruses interact in natural environments is needed to explore how host availability conditions viral diversity and distributions.
