Via CIDRAP: NEWS SCAN: TB funding plea, Navy ship pandemic outbreak, ground beef outbreak called over. Click through for the full report and links. Excerpt:
Although a third of tested crew members aboard a US Navy ship became infected with the pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) virus during a summer 2009 outbreak, 53% did not recall respiratory symptoms, just 35% met criteria for respiratory illness, and only 11% met criteria for influenza-like illness (ILI), according to a serologic study published yesterday.
Writing in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Navy reported results from 489 of a 2,000-member crew for whom pre- and post-outbreak serum samples were available. Of the 489, 142 (32%) were shown to be pH1N1-infected by polymerase chain reaction testing; 78% had been vaccinated against flu the year before.
The attack rate in the 57 women in the study was higher, 41%, compared with 31% in men. Marines had a higher attack rate compared with Navy personnel, 37% versus 25%.
Of those infected, 74 (53%) were asymptomatic, 51 (35%) had acute respiratory symptoms, and 17 (11%) had ILI symptoms.
