oai:www.zora.uzh.ch:203492
Cambridge University Press
Subjects = 04 Faculty of Medicine
2022
10/12/2023
OBJECTIVE: Nosocomial transmission of influenza is a major concern for infection control.
We aimed to dissect transmission dynamics of influenza, including asymptomatic transmission events, in acute care.
DESIGN: Prospective surveillance study during 2 influenza seasons.
SETTING: Tertiary-care hospital.
PARTICIPANTS: Volunteer sample of inpatients on medical wards and healthcare workers (HCWs).
METHODS: Participants provided daily illness diaries and nasal swabs for influenza A and B detection and whole-genome sequencing for phylogenetic analyses.
Contacts between study participants were tracked.
Secondary influenza attack rates were calculated based on spatial and temporal proximity and phylogenetic evidence for transmission.
RESULTS: In total, 152 HCWs and 542 inpatients were included; 16 HCWs (10.5%) and 19 inpatients (3.5%) tested positive for influenza on 109 study days.
Study participants had symptoms of disease on most of the days they tested positive for influenza (83.1% and 91.9% for HCWs and inpatients, respectively).
Also, 11(15.5%) of 71 influenza-positive swabs among HCWs and 3 (7.9%) of 38 influenza-positive swabs among inpatients were collected on days without symptoms; 2 (12.5%) of 16 HCWs and 2 (10.5%) of 19 inpatients remained fully asymptomatic.
The secondary attack rate was low: we recorded 1 transmission event over 159 contact days (0.6%) that originated from a symptomatic case.
No transmission event occurred in 61 monitored days of contacts with asymptomatic influenza-positive individuals.
CONCLUSIONS: Influenza in acute care is common, and individuals regularly shed influenza virus without harboring symptoms.
Nevertheless, both symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission events proved rare.
We suggest that healthcare-associated influenza prevention strategies that are based on preseason vaccination and barrier precautions for symptomatic individuals seem to be effective.
Tamò, Raphaël, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2098-9392,Turk, Teja, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3065-8578,Böni, Jürg, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7925-4852,Kouyos, Roger D, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9220-8348,Schmutz, Stefan, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1955-7007,Huber, Michael, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0384-0000,Shah, Cyril,Bischoff-Ferrari, Heike A,Distler, Oliver, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0546-8310,Battegay, Edouard, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9202-5034,Giovanoli, Pietro,Guckenberger, Matthias, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7146-9071,Kohler, Malcolm, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1800-8003,Müller, Rouven,Petry, Heidi, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5220-4273,Ruschitzka, Frank, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5972-0596,McGeer, Allison,Sax, Hugo, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1532-2198,Weber, Rainer,Trkola, Alexandra, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1013-876X,Kuster, Stefan P, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0525-6529, 2022, Secondary attack rates from asymptomatic and symptomatic influenza virus shedders in hospitals: Results from the TransFLUas influenza transmission study, Cambridge University Press