In this week's PLoS Medicine, Steven Riley, from Imperial College London, and colleagues analyze a community cohort study from the 2009 (H1N1) influenza pandemic in Hong Kong, finding that more children than adults were infected with H1N1, but children were less likely to progress to severe disease than adults. The authors recommend that revised pandemic preparedness plans should include prospective serological cohort studies, such as this one, in order to be able to estimate rates of severe disease per infection.
Funding: This project was supported by: the Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Disease, Food and Health Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong SAR (PHE-21); the RAPIDD program from Fogarty International Centre with the Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security; R01 TW008246-01 from Fogarty International Centre; the Area of Excellence Scheme of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (AoE/M-12/06); US National Institutes of Health Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study program; and a Wellcome Trust University Award 093488/Z/10/Z. The funding bodies had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the manuscript, or the decision to publish.
Competing Interests: BJC has received research funding from MedImmune Inc., a manufacturer of influenza vaccines. JSMP declares research support from GlaxoSmithKline, Baxter, Cruxell, Combinatorix, and DIVA Solutions. No other conflicts were declared. Dr J.S Malik Peiris is a PLoS Medicine Editorial Board Member.
Citation: Riley S, Kwok KO, Wu KM, Ning DY, Cowling BJ, et al. (2011) Epidemiological Characteristics of 2009 (H1N1) Pandemic Influenza Based on Paired Sera from a Longitudinal Community Cohort Study. PLoS Med 8(6): e1000442. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000442
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CONTACT:
Dr. Steven Riley
MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
School of Public Health
Imperial College London
London W2 1PG
United Kingdom
+44 7890 173902
s.riley@imperial.ac.uk
Journal
PLoS Medicine