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Stefan Kuster
Researchers monitoring influenza transmission in a tertiary care hospital in Switzerland found that a "significant" proportion of patients and health workers eliminated the influenza virus before the onset of symptoms.
The researchers reported finding several undetected influenza transmission groups through routine surveillance and seven overall groups of potential transmission among health workers, including one that appeared to include transmission of an asymptomatic health worker to an inpatient The results were presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Stefan Kuster, MD, MSc, MBA, a Chief Medical Officer of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology of the University Hospital Zurich conducted a prospective study of 543 hospitalized patients and 152 active health care workers working in the same departments at the flu courses 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 seasons at the University Hospital Zurich.
They performed daily nasal swabs to monitor influenza infection and contacts between study participants.
Nineteen hospitalized patients (3.5%) and 16 health care workers (10.5%) were diagnosed with influenza. Kuster and colleagues wrote that the majority of people who tested positive (83.1% of health care workers and 91.9% of patients) had flu-like symptoms, including respiratory symptoms, at the time of testing. positive test.
According to the findings, 16.9% of positive influenza specimens among health care workers and 8.1% of positive influenza specimens in patients were collected on days when they were not positive for influenza. have not reported any symptoms.
Researchers also reported that 12.5% of health care workers and 10.5% of inpatients who tested positive remained asymptomatic. Two (13%) of the health care workers and none of the symptomatic patients had a positive influenza test before the onset of symptoms.
"Our findings suggest that influenza infection in acute care is common and that a significant proportion of individuals seem to transmit the influenza virus without presenting symptoms, making it the spread of flu very difficult to control, even with self-diagnostics and current infection control practices "Kuster said Infectious Diseases News. "Influenza vaccination is not perfect but remains the best tool we have to protect health care workers and their patients from serious diseases."
Results from a previous study showed that more than 50% of health care trainees reported being presented for working with flu-like illness, even though they knew the risk for others. – by Bruce Thiel
References:
Cowman K et al. Am J. Infect Control. 2019; doi: 10.1016 / j.ajic.2018.02.004.
Tamó R, et al. Abstract 2292. Presented to ECCMID; April 13-16, 2019; Amsterdam.
Disclosures: The authors do not report any relevant financial information.
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