(Press-News.org) Children born prematurely are at an increased risk of flu-related complications, despite not being identified as an "at risk" group in UK, USA, or WHO guidelines, and should be a priority group for the seasonal flu vaccination, new research published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine suggests.
"Until now, guidelines highlighting groups at greater risk of developing complications from influenza, such as pneumonia, have been based on consensus opinion rather than on systematic assessment of the evidence"*, explains Dr Kay Wang from the University of Oxford in the UK.
Dr Wang and colleagues did a systematic review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished data to identify which groups of children seen in primary or ambulatory care with influenza or influenza-like illness are at increased risk of complications (measured as being admitted to hospital).
The review analysed data from a total of 27 studies involving 14 086 children, including 3086 children with underlying conditions. Premature birth was identified as a new strong risk factor with approximately twice the risk of hospitalisation**, based on the results of seven studies including a total of 3142 children. Dr Wang explains, "Considering that around 10% (12.9 million) of the world's babies are born prematurely (before 37 weeks gestation)--with preterm delivery rates of around 6% in Europe, 11% in North America, and 12% in Africa--it's a significant public health issue and has major implications for policy makers."*
Consistent with existing guidelines from the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, WHO, and the UK Department of Health, the findings confirm that children with neurological disorders, immunosuppression, and diabetes are at greater risk of developing influenza-related complications. Children with sickle cell disease and those aged younger than 2 years were also found to be at greater risk but are not currently deemed "at risk" in UK guidelines (see table 2 page 7).
In contrast to all three sets of current guidelines, obese children and those with respiratory disorders (eg, asthma) were not found to be at higher risk of influenza-related complications (see table 2 page 7). However, these findings are based on all children with these conditions, irrespective of their clinical severity. The authors were unable to assess the risk of hospital admission specifically among children in whom these conditions were severe.
Importantly, the analysis also found that having multiple medical conditions increased the risk of children with influenza being hospitalised. The percentage of children admitted to hospital increased from 48% in children with one condition to 74% in children with more than one condition.
According to Dr Wang, "Policy makers need to be aware of which groups of children should be prioritised when delivering interventions (eg, flu vaccination and antiviral drugs) to prevent influenza and influenza-related complications, particularly during influenza epidemics and pandemics."*
Writing in a linked Comment, Harish Nair from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, and Marc-Alain Widdowson from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection in the USA say, "Several options exist to better prevent severe outcomes in young children. Examples include the introduction, or increasing the uptake of, influenza and PCV vaccination globally, immunisation of mothers against influenza to protect very young infants, and exploration of other vaccine types such as adjuvanted vaccines that may be more immunogenic and crossprotective against non-matched strains. Implementation of these options should not wait for the next influenza pandemic, but be explored now to prevent the disproportionate burden of seasonal influenza on susceptible children every year."
INFORMATION:
NOTES TO EDITORS:
This study presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under the Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (RP-PG-1210-12012). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health
*Quotes direct from author and cannot be found in text of Article.
**This relative risk estimate has been calculated by converting the odds ratio presented in the Article into a risk ratio, and is based on the results of the seven studies which provided data on children born prematurely. Please contact the authors if you wish to enquire about conversion of odds ratios into risk ratios for other risk factors.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found a duplication of a short stretch of the X chromosome in some people with a rare disorder that causes excessive childhood growth. They believe that a single gene within the region likely has a large influence on how much children grow. The research comes from a lab at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which seeks to understand growth.
"Finding the gene responsible for childhood overgrowth would be very helpful, but the much wider question is what ...
HOUSTON - (Dec. 3, 2014) - Rice University scientists have discovered an environmentally friendly carbon-capture method that could be equally adept at drawing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial flue gases and natural gas wells.
The Rice lab of chemist Andrew Barron revealed in a proof-of-concept study that amine-rich compounds are highly effective at capturing the greenhouse gas when combined with carbon-60 molecules.
The research is the subject of an open-access paper today in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports.
"We had two goals," Barron said. "One ...
The longer surgery lasts the more prone patients appear to be to develop blood clots (venous thromboembolisms, VTE), according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery.
The association between longer surgical procedures and death, including VTE, is widely accepted but it has yet to be quantitatively addressed. More than 500,000 hospitalizations and 100,000 deaths are associated each year with VTEs. Examining the link between VTE and surgical time could allow for more informed medical and surgical decisions, according to the study background.
John Y.S. Kim, M.D., ...
CHICAGO --- The longer the duration of surgery, the higher the risk of a life-threatening blood clot, according to the first large-scale, quantitative national study of the risk across all surgical procedures.
The Northwestern Medicine study was published Dec. 3 in JAMA Surgery, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The finding will help guide surgical decision-making by enabling surgeons and patients to better understand the potential risk of procedures. These findings may also spur surgeons to take more aggressive preventative measures such as giving ...
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2014--The ability to detect when to harvest "climacteric" fruits -- such as apples, bananas, pears and tomatoes -- at the precise moment to ensure "peak edibleness" in terms of both taste and texture may soon be within reach for farmers, thanks to the work of a team of researchers from Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale de Brest in France.
As the team reports in a paper published in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Applied Optics, they recently demonstrated a laser biospeckle technique capable of detecting ...
New Orleans, LA - A multi-institutional study reports an effective treatment approach to inhibit and keep latent viruses like herpes simplex from reactivating and causing disease. The work, whose lead author is the late James Hill, PhD, LSU Health New Orleans Professor and Director of Pharmacology and Infectious Disease at the LSU Eye Center, is published in the December 3, 2014, issue of Science Translational Medicine.
The research team, led by Thomas M. Kristie, PhD, Chief of the Molecular Genetics Section in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' ...
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A group of psychology researchers at Florida State University have developed a simple computer-based approach to treating anxiety sensitivity, something that could have major implications for veterans and other groups who are considered at risk for suicide.
"We have been using computer-delivered interventions for many years now in an effort to more efficiently deliver effective treatments," said psychology Professor Brad Schmidt, director of the Anxiety and Behavioral Health Clinic. "This study gives us evidence that a brief intervention may help ...
VIDEO:
A new time-lapse animation of data from NOAA's GOES-West satellite provides a good picture of why the U.S. West Coast continues to experience record rainfall. The new animation shows the...
Click here for more information.
A new time-lapse animation of data from NOAA's GOES-West satellite provides a good picture of why the U.S. West Coast continues to experience record rainfall. The new animation shows the movement of storms from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3.
NOAA's Geostationary ...
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 3, 2014 - Sophisticated lung imaging can show whether or not a treatment drug is able to clear tuberculosis (TB) lung infection in human and macaque studies, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and their international collaborators.
The findings, published online today in Science Translational Medicine, indicate the animal model can correctly predict which experimental agents have the best chance for success in human trials.
The image on the left shows "hot spots" of infection in a patient's lungs before treatment. ...
Scientists from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), the Environment Society of Oman, and other organizations have made a fascinating discovery in the northern Indian Ocean: humpback whales inhabiting the Arabian Sea are the most genetically distinct humpback whales in the world and may be the most isolated whale population on earth. The results suggest they have remained separate from other humpback whale populations for perhaps 70,000 years, extremely unusual in a species famed for long distance migrations.
The study appears ...
