Re: Case List: 11/5
Re: Case List: 11/5
Some charts from this reporting period:

As shown in Table 4 above, school-aged individuals (5-18 years) have been primarily affected by H1N1, with over 62% of cases age 18 or younger. The median age of cases is 14 and cases range from 0 to 92 years. To date, males and females have been equally impacted by H1N1. Overall, 206 cases have been hospitalized (13%), which is similar to the national hospitalization rate of 11% as of July 10, and 13 cases have died. Of the 13 deaths, 10 had underlying conditions.
Automated Epidemiologic Geotemporal Integrated Surveillance System (AEGIS) Flu Data
The AEGIS System is the syndromic surveillance system for MDPH, and performs automated, real-time surveillance for infectious disease outbreaks. As an adaptation of the AEGIS surveillance system, AEGIS Flu is designed to provide early warning of influenza epidemics and pandemics. With special focus on demographic and spatial patterns of illness, AEGIS Flu provides automated, real-time surveillance of influenza rates, location, and spread. Emergency department (ED) ILI data are collected from 19 hospitals in Massachusetts. Visits from emergency departments can be affected by several factors, including how worried people are about the flu, whether people can see their own doctor, media announcements, etc. The data are most useful for following trends over several days or weeks. In Figure 2 below, we can see current rates of total visits to emergency departments in MA due to flu-like symptoms compared to historical trends. Similar to Massachusetts Sentinel Site data, AEGIS data suggests a continuous, marked increase in influenza-like illness in recent weeks.
Sentinel Provider Surveillance: Influenza-like illness activity
Week 43 activity level: Widespread
Provider offices across the US report the amount of influenza-like illness (ILI) they see in their patients each week during regular flu season. These doctors' offices are called 'sentinel sites'. Here we present Massachusetts sentinel site data. Please note that the data do not represent only confirmed influenza cases, but also those just with ILI. ILI is defined as fever above 100.02 in addition to either cough or sore throat. ILI is a marker of influenza and is used throughout the regular flu season to monitor influenza since most people are not tested. Figure 1 shows a continuous, dramatic increase in ILI activity over the past few weeks in excess of what was seen at the same time during the last two years.
1
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm
2 Per CDC definition for influenza-like illness:
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/casedef.htm
