- Title
- Effect of antiviral prophylaxis on influenza outbreaks in aged care facilities in three local health districts in New South Wales, Australia, 2014
- Creator
- Merritt, Tony; Hope, Kirsty; Butler, Michelle; Durrheim, David; Gupta, Leena; Najjar, Zeina; Conaty, Stephen; Boonwatt, Leng; Fletcher, Stephanie
- Relation
- Western Pacific Surveillance and Response Journal Vol. 7, Issue 1, p. 14-20
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.5365/wpsar.2015.6.3.005
- Publisher
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Background: There was a record number (n = 111) of influenza outbreaks in aged care facilities in New South Wales, Australia during 2014. To determine the impact of antiviral prophylaxis recommendations in practice, influenza outbreak data were compared for facilities in which antiviral prophylaxis and treatment were recommended and for those in which antivirals were recommended for treatment only. Methods: Routinely collected outbreak data were extracted from the Notifiable Conditions Information Management System for two Local Health Districts where antiviral prophylaxis was routinely recommended and one Local Health District where antivirals were recommended for treatment but not routinely for prophylaxis. Data collected on residents included counts of influenza-like illness, confirmed influenza, hospitalizations and related deaths. Dates of onset, notification, influenza confirmation and antiviral recommendations were also collected for analysis. The Mann–Whitney U test was used to assess the significance of differences between group medians for key parameters. Results: A total of 41 outbreaks (12 in the prophylaxis group and 29 in the treatment-only group) were included in the analysis. There was no significant difference in overall outbreak duration; outbreak duration after notification; or attack, hospitalization or case fatality rates between the two groups. The prophylaxis group had significantly higher cases with influenza-like illness (P = 0.03) and cases recommended antiviral treatment per facility (P = 0.01). Discussion: This study found no significant difference in key outbreak parameters between the two groups. However, further high quality evidence is needed to guide the use of antivirals in responding to influenza outbreaks in aged care facilities.
- Subject
- influenza; aged care facilities; NSW, Australia; antiviral prophylaxis; influenza outbreaks
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1342148
- Identifier
- uon:28903
- Identifier
- ISSN:2094-7321
- Rights
- © 2016 The Authors; licensee the World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization, products or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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