Detection of Influenza in the Epidemic Season 2016/2017 Based on I–MOVE+ Project

Abstract

In the influenza season 2016/2017 in Europe, the predominant virus was A/H3N2/. In Poland, the percentage of people vaccinated against influenza was 3.33%. European I-MOVE+ project shows how important it is to monitor the effectiveness of influenza vaccine. The project demonstrates that a match between the circulating vaccine strains and those included in the vaccine for the Northern Hemisphere was low-to-moderate. In the present study, there were 379 patients and 296 control subjects examined in hospitals in Poland as part of I-MOVE+ project. The real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method was used to detect the influenza virus in all subjects. We detected the influenza subtype A/H3N2/ in 59.1% and type B virus in 2.1%. There was one co-infection of subtype A/H3N2/ with subtype A/H1N1/ and eight co-infections of type B with subtype A/H3N2/. No influenza viruses were detected in the control group. Only 19 patients and 22 control subjects were vaccinated during the epidemic season in question. A proportion of people vaccinated against influenza in Poland remains dismally low compared to other European countries.

Surveillance of medically‐attended influenza in elderly patients from Romania—data from three consecutive influenza seasons (2015/16, 2016/17, and 2017/18)

“…However, in our study of elderly patients the season was dominated by the circulation of A viruses (90.0% compared with the national estimate of 65.7% in all age groups 20 and compared to our previous report of 33.9% in all age groups with an emphasis on children 19 ), suggesting that A viruses predominated in elderly patients in 2016/17; A(H3N2) accounted for 100% of all circulating A viruses in 2016/17 in the current study and in our previous report 19 . Data from Bulgaria and Poland also report the predominance of influenza A virus (97.5% 21 and 95.5% 22 of all influenza cases, respectively), and specifically the A(H3N2) subtype in the 2016/17 season, but A(H1N1)pdm09 was also present in these two countries, to a lower extent 21,22 . Our data are also in agreement with a recent meta‐regression analysis reporting that type B influenza viruses are somewhat less frequent in elderly patients compared to the other age groups 23 …”

Epidemic Influenza Seasons from 2008 to 2018 in Poland: A Focused Review of Virological Characteristics

“…In Poland, type A virus also predominated (96.7%), but subtype A/H3N2/ was confirmed in just 29.7%. Due to a substantial percentage of unsubtyped material, A/H3N2/ predominance could not be conclusively confirmed (Szymański et al , 2019Hallmann-Szelińska et al 2018).…”