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Clinical Features of Severe Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Infection
The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 06/14/2012
Chen Y et al. – During late stage of pandemic wave, the majority of patients were young children. Children with severe Influenza A (H1N1) are prone to develop complications, and die from ARDS. If influenza–like illness is accompanied by neurologic signs, influenza A (H1N1) virus infection should be considered. The viral shedding in children is longer than in adults.
Methods- In this retrospective study, the medical records of inpatients with influenza A (H1N1) infection between November 1, 2009 and May 31, 2011were reviewed.
- Eighty pediatric in-patients with median age 41.9 mo were studied.
- ARDS (11/80), pneumothorax (8/80), pleural effusion (7/80) and encephalopathy (7/80) were the most frequent complications. Six of 11 ARDS patients died;all of them were under 5 y.
- The median days of viral shedding was 11.4 d. Slight increase of Il-6, Il-10 and TNF-alpha were revealed in some cases.
