Influenza A and B infection among children with influenza like illness and pneumonia in Jakarta

Influenza virus is known as the cause of morbidity and mortalitydue to acute respiratory infections. Influenza infection can affectall ages especially susceptible population such as young children.Approximately 600 million cases of influenza infections occurworldwide due to seasonal epidemic events. The burden of influenzainfections on children in Indonesia is unknown. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on 0–14-year-oldpatients at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital and Pulogadung PrimaryHealth Care in Jakarta. The study ran from January to September2010. Inclusion criteria were acute fever, cough, runny nose ordifficulty of breathing. Influenza virus was detected from nasopharyngeal swab through rapid test kit (Binax Now Influenza A & Btest). Twenty percent of negative test results were confirmed byPCR examination. Results: There were 14 of 167 subjects (7.9% of cases) with influenzainfection. Ten percent of the subjects (16/167) had pneumonia andthe other only came with Influenza like Illness (ILI) Syndrome.None of the pneumonia cases had influenza infections. Most of thepositive results occurred in 5–14-year-old subjects. Only one subjecthad influenza immunization. There were no differences betweenthe numbers of positive cases during rainy or dry seasons. All thepositive cases had cough, runny nose and fever. Most of the caseshad malaise, myalgia, and headache. Only half of the cases hadnausea, sore throat and vomiting. Conclusions: The incidence of influenza infections among ILIsyndrome was 7.9%. There was no peak of cases during the rainyseason. The clinical characteristics of the positive cases were inconcordance with classic influenza infections