A Forgotten Danger: Burden of Influenza Mortality Among American Indians and Alaska Natives, 1999-2016.

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) are the only racial group in the United States that is identified as having a higher risk for developing influenza-related complications. As such, influenza-related mortality has consistently been one of the leading causes of death among AI/ANs. In addition, estimating influenza-related mortality is hampered by significant degrees of racial misclassification and underreporting of both morbidity and mortality data in the AI/AN population. Using data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we analyzed influenza mortality by geography, race, gender, and age group to improve our understanding of the influenza burden on AI/AN communities. We found that while mortality rates generally declined across the AI/AN population, significant disparities exist between AI/ANs and non-Hispanic whites (NHWs). The greatest disparities occurred at the earliest stages of life, with mortality rates for AI/AN children younger than 5 years being more than 2 times higher than for NHW children. Similarly, the burden of influenza-related mortality among AI/AN adults emerged much earlier in life compared with NHWs. Perhaps most important, though, we found significant disparities in the geographic distribution of influenza-related mortality among AI/ANs. Because these are largely vaccine-preventable deaths, these results identify an area for targeted intervention to reduce the overall deaths attributable to influenza.

Aetiology and incidence of diarrhoea requiring hospitalisation in children under 5 years of age in 28 low-income and middle-income countries: findings from the Global Pediatric Diarrhea Surveillance network.

INTRODUCTION: Diarrhoea remains a leading cause of child morbidity and mortality. Systematically collected and analysed data on the aetiology of hospitalised diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries are needed to prioritise interventions. METHODS: We established the Global Pediatric Diarrhea Surveillance network, in which children under 5 years hospitalised with diarrhoea were enrolled at 33 sentinel surveillance hospitals in 28 low-income and middle-income countries. Randomly selected stool specimens were tested by quantitative PCR for 16 causes of diarrhoea. We estimated pathogen-specific attributable burdens of diarrhoeal hospitalisations and deaths. We incorporated country-level incidence to estimate the number of pathogen-specific deaths on a global scale. RESULTS: During 2017-2018, 29 502 diarrhoea hospitalisations were enrolled, of which 5465 were randomly selected and tested. Rotavirus was the leading cause of diarrhoea requiring hospitalisation (attributable fraction (AF) 33.3%; 95% CI 27.7 to 40.3), followed by Shigella (9.7%; 95% CI 7.7 to 11.6), norovirus (6.5%; 95% CI 5.4 to 7.6) and adenovirus 40/41 (5.5%; 95% CI 4.4 to 6.7). Rotavirus was the leading cause of hospitalised diarrhoea in all regions except the Americas, where the leading aetiologies were Shigella (19.2%; 95% CI 11.4 to 28.1) and norovirus (22.2%; 95% CI 17.5 to 27.9) in Central and South America, respectively. The proportion of hospitalisations attributable to rotavirus was approximately 50% lower in sites that had introduced rotavirus vaccine (AF 20.8%; 95% CI 18.0 to 24.1) compared with sites that had not (42.1%; 95% CI 33.2 to 53.4). Globally, we estimated 208 009 annual rotavirus-attributable deaths (95% CI 169 561 to 259 216), 62 853 Shigella-attributable deaths (95% CI 48 656 to 78 805), 36 922 adenovirus 40/41-attributable deaths (95% CI 28 469 to 46 672) and 35 914 norovirus-attributable deaths (95% CI 27 258 to 46 516). CONCLUSIONS: Despite the substantial impact of rotavirus vaccine introduction, rotavirus remained the leading cause of paediatric diarrhoea hospitalisations. Improving the efficacy and coverage of rotavirus vaccination and prioritising interventions against Shigella, norovirus and adenovirus could further reduce diarrhoea morbidity and mortality.