BACKGROUND A well-constructed and properly operating influenza surveillance scheme is essential for public health. This study was conducted to evaluate the distribution of respiratory viruses in patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) through the first teaching hospital-based surveillance scheme for ILI in South Korea. METHODS Respiratory specimens were obtained from adult patients (≥18 ye...

PURPOSE To assess the utility of "influenza-like illness" (ILI) and whether it appropriately tests influenza vaccine effectiveness. PRINCIPAL RESULTS The WHO and CDC definitions of "influenza-like illness" are similar. However many studies use other definitions, some not specifying a temperature and requiring specific respiratory and/or systemic symptoms, making many samples non-comparable. M...

BACKGROUND In this study, we assess how effective pandemic and trivalent 2009-2010 seasonal vaccines were in preventing influenza-like illness (ILI) during the 2009 A(H1N1) pandemic in France. We also compare vaccine effectiveness against ILI versus laboratory-confirmed pandemic A(H1N1) influenza, and assess the possible bias caused by using non-specific endpoints and observational data. METH...

INTRODUCTION Haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) antibody titer is a correlate of protection against influenza; its persistence after infection or vaccination is important to determining susceptibility to subsequent infection. Few studies, however, have reported longitudinal data regarding the magnitude and duration of HI protection following natural seasonal influenza A infection. METHODS Usin...

The goal of the Data Integration and Predictive Analysis System (IPAS) is to enable prediction, analysis, and response management for incidents of infectious diseases. IPAS collects and integrates comprehensive datasets of previous disease incidents and potential influencing factors to facilitate multivariate, predictive analytics of disease patterns, intensity, and timing. IPAS supports compre...

This paper describes the multilingual design of the EuroWordNet database. The EuroWordNet database stores wordnets as autonomous language-specific structures that are interconnected via an Inter-Lingual-Index (ILI). In this paper, we discuss the possibilities to create mappings from each wordnet to the central ILI and how the ILI itself can be adapted to provide more overlap across the wordnets...

In Brief This article reports on an investigation of whether an intensive lifestyle intervention (ILI) would reduce gastrointestinal symptoms over 4 years of follow-up for participants in the Action for Health in Diabetes (Look AHEAD) trial compared to a diabetes support and education (DSE) group. Look AHEAD is a randomized, multicenter trial comparing overweight and obese adults with type 2 di...

The CDC presented considerations for distinguishing influenza-like illness from inhalational anthrax (MMWR, 9 Nov 01, 50:44 pp. 984-986). “Although many different illness might present with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) symptoms, the presence of certain signs and symptoms might help to distinguish other causes of ILI from inhalational anthrax. Nasal congestion and rhinorrhea are features of mo...

Circulating levels of both seasonal and pandemic influenza require constant surveillance to ensure the health and safety of the population. While up-to-date information is critical, traditional surveillance systems can have data availability lags of up to two weeks. We introduce a novel method of estimating, in near-real time, the level of influenza-like illness (ILI) in the United States (US) ...

BACKGROUND Most influenza surveillance is based on data from urban sentinel hospitals; little is known about influenza activity in rural communities. We conducted influenza surveillance in a rural region of China with the aim of detecting influenza activity in the 2009/2010 influenza season. METHODS The study was conducted from October 2009 to March 2010. Real-time polymerase chain reaction w...