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Epidemiological Characteristics of Influenza A and B in Macau, 2010–2018

Virologica Sinica volume 36, pages 1144–1153 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

Influenza is one of the major respiratory diseases in humans. Macau is a tourist city with high density of population and special population mobility. The study on the epidemiological characteristics of influenza in Macau should bring great value for preventing influenza in tourist cities like Macau in the world. In this study, we collected a total of 104,874 samples with influenza-like illness (ILI) in Macau from 2010 to 2018. Chi-square test and binary multivariable logistic regression were used to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of influenza A and B in Macau. Among these ILI samples, the overall positive rate is 17.17% for influenza A and 6.97% for influenza B. The epidemics of influenza in three years (i.e., 2012, 2017 and 2018) differ from the remaining years (i.e., normal years). In a normal year, influenza A occurs year-round whereas influenza B is seasonal. Our research shows significant differences in influenza infections between different age groups in normal years. Interestingly, our analysis shows no significant difference between locals and tourists in influenza A and B infection in a normal year, whereas the odds of influenza A in tourists were significantly higher than those in locals in July 2017 and the odds of influenza B in tourists were significantly higher than those in locals in January–February 2012 and January–February 2018. This is possibly attributed by the policy of free vaccination to everyone in Macau. These findings should be valuable for preventing influenza in not only Macau but also the world.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of Macau (Grant Numbers: FHS-CRDA-029-002-2017, EF005/FHS-ZXH/2018/GSTIC and MYRG2018-00071-FHS) and by the Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau SAR (File No. 0004/2019/AFJ).

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Author notes

  1. HoiMan Ng and Teng Zhang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Laboratory, Kiang Wu Hospital, Macau, 999078, Macau

    HoiMan Ng, SiMeng Kan, MengIn Wong, ChioHang Wong & Jinliang Ni

  2. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, 999078, Macau

    Teng Zhang, Guoliang Wang, Guoyi Ma, Zhe Li, Chang Chen, Dandan Wang & Xiaohua Douglas Zhang

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  1. HoiMan Ng
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  2. Teng Zhang
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Contributions

XDZ and JLN conceived the study with input from all co-authors. HMN, SMK, MIW, CHW and JLN collected the data. TZ, GLW, GYM, ZL, CC and DDW did the data analyses and HMN, TZ, XDZ and JLN performed the interpretation of the data. HMN and TZ wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and XDZ revised and approved the final manuscript. All authors contributed to the final version and agreed to the submission.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jinliang Ni or Xiaohua Douglas Zhang.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.

Animal and Human Rights Statement

This study was conducted with the approval of the Animal Ethics Committee of Kiang Wu Hospital in Macau.

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Ng, H., Zhang, T., Wang, G. et al. Epidemiological Characteristics of Influenza A and B in Macau, 2010–2018. Virol. Sin. 36, 1144–1153 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-021-00388-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-021-00388-6

Keywords

  • Influenza
  • Epidemiology
  • Chi-square test
  • Logistic regression
  • Macau