PHILADELPHIA — After presenting to a busy pediatric emergency department, only 3% of children admitted had suspected pandemic influenza during the peak of the outbreak last year.
“Our cases of influenzalike illness were relatively mild and associated with a much lower hospital admission rate than cases we saw for other reasons,” Dr. Jeffrey Chen said at the annual meeting of the Eastern Society for Pediatric Research. “Most of the admissions [for suspected pandemic flu] were younger children and were associated with pulmonary disease.”
Dr. Chen and his associates at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York assessed the 2009 pandemic flu season by reviewing the charts of patients admitted from April 29 to June 15—the peak of the outbreak in New York City. During the study period, 4,921 patients were seen in the facility—an increase of 77% from the same period in 2008. Of those, 52% (2,543) fulfilled the criteria for flulike illness set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: fever, cough, sore throat, myalgia, vomiting, or diarrhea.
Most of the patients with flulike illness (2,472) were discharged; 71 patients (3%) were admitted to the hospital.
Pulmonary symptoms were significantly more common among those admitted with suspected flu than among those discharged (27% vs. 5%).
Despite the finding of probable flu, most patients had no confirmatory testing: 58% of admitted patients were not tested, and 70% of those discharged were not tested.
Disclosures: None was reported.