BACKGROUND Recent studies suggest that humans exhale fine particles during tidal breathing but little is known of their composition, particularly during infection. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We conducted a study of influenza infected patients to characterize influenza virus and particle concentrations in their exhaled breath. Patients presenting with influenza-like-illness, confirmed infl...

one hundred sera from children 1 - 6 years of age, representative of a large serum collection, were tested for the prevalence of antibodies against different viruses. hemagglutination-inhibition (hi) antibodies were found in 68% for measles; 61 % for rubella; 75'% for influenza a2/hong kong/68, 16% for influenza b/md./59, 0% for group a arboviruses, 10% for group b arboviruses, 3% for phlebotom...

BACKGROUND Despite the public health significance of annual influenza outbreaks, the literature comparing the epidemiology of influenza A and B infections is limited and dated and may not reflect recent trends. In Canada, the relative contribution of influenza A and B to the burden of morbidity is not well understood. We examined rates of laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza A and B (LCI-A a...

Influenza B viral infection is of great importance, but the epidemiological and phylogenetic characteristics of influenza B infection in severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases are still unclear.The clinical information of 2816 SARI cases and 467,737 influenza-like illness (ILI) cases in Beijing area from September 2014 to April 2015 were collected and analyzed. Among them, 91 influenza...

Determining the local circulating strain of influenza is essential to prevent and control epidemics. In the years 2004 and 2005, the National Influenza Center of Thailand received 3,854 and 3,834 specimens, respectively, from patients throughout the country, including submissions from 4 established influenza surveillance sentinel sites. In 2004, of 539 influenza-positive specimens, 461 were pos...

BACKGROUND Studies that aimed at comparing the clinical presentation of influenza patients across virus types and subtypes/lineages found divergent results, but this was never investigated using data collected over several years in a countrywide, primary care practitioners-based influenza surveillance system. METHODS The IBVD (Influenza B in Vircases Database) study collected information on s...

The burden of human infections with influenza A and B viruses is substantial, and the impact of influenza B virus infections can exceed that of influenza A virus infections in some seasons. Over the past few decades, viruses of two influenza B virus lineages (Victoria and Yamagata) have circulated in humans, and both lineages are now represented in influenza vaccines, as recommended by the Worl...

Molecular epidemiology of influenza B virus remained poorly studied in Italy, despite representing a major contributor to seasonal epidemics. This study aimed to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships and genetic diversity of the hemagglutinin gene sequences of 197 influenza B strains circulating in both Southern (Sicily) and Northern (Liguria) Italy between 2010 and 2015. Upper respiratory...

The sensitivity of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of antibody to influenza B virus was compared with that of the hemagglutination inhibition test on acute- and convalescence-phase sera obtained from adults and children infected with influenza B virus. Two whole virus, tissue culture-grown antigen preparations were used in the ELISA, influenza B/West Virginia/81 a...

BACKGROUND Influenza neuraminidase (NA) is an important surface glycoprotein and plays a vital role in viral replication and drug development. The NA is found in influenza A and B viruses, with nine subtypes classified in influenza A. The complete knowledge of influenza NA evolutionary history and phylodynamics, although critical for the prevention and control of influenza epidemics and pandemi...